Dogs and Birds Teach Kids Music
Parents eager to turn their children into little Chopins now have the help of animals to teach their toddlers simple keyboarding skills.
Dogs and Birds is a new approach to teaching piano and was started by an Egham woman who found that by using animal names, like ‘dog’ for the D note and ‘bird’ for B, children can more easily read music.
EIza Lusher, who teaches piano privately and as a lecturer at the International School (ACS) in Egham, is originally from Hungary.
The method she uses to teach young children piano skills is adapted from the Kodály approach, which all Hungarian music teaching is based on.
Mrs Lusher said: “There’s a lot of singing involved, which immediately helps the child hone their ear for the different notes. Also learning can he made more enjoyable by using toy animals to help visualise the notes.”
She was trained as a piano teacher at the Liszt Academy in Hungary and has been teaching the piano for over twenty years now, first in Hungary and since 1993 in England.
Together with her husband Chris Lusher a Senior Lecturer in Physics at Royal Holloway University of London, and illustrator Liz Patton, Mrs Lusher has created a system of teaching and books. Visit dogsandbirds.co.uk to view sample pages of the books.