118. Using Music to Support Pre-K Language Development with Emily Cadiz

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Language development isn’t worksheets and passive listening, especially when it comes to language delays and struggling students. After a traumatic brain injury, guest Emily Cadiz learned first-hand how difficult it is to get back language skills, much less learn them in the first place.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Our pre-kindergarten children spend up to 4.5 hours a day in front of a screen, impairing their ability to use their language skills. The result is kindergarteners and primary school students who are far behind where they should be academically. </span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">So Emily took what she learned trying to get her own language skills back and turned it into a fun, interactive curriculum that both teachers and parents can use. And to make it engaging, she used one of the most universal tools around: music.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Tune in this week to find out what happens in pre-k brains, how a former music professional developed curriculum for our most underserved (and overlooked) kiddos and teachers, and what dragons have to do with it.</span></p> <h2><span style="font-weight: 400;">About Emily Cadiz:</span></h2> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Emily Cadiz is founder and CEO of Finnegan the Dragon, which creates tone-based curriculum and gaming systems that support early childhood language and literacy development. Her first book, Finnegan the Singing Dragon, introduces audiences to the main character in this adventure-based learning system.  Emily,and her team, use inclusive music and tone/singing as the interactive tool for classroom and online learning so that children develop the needed language skills for greater communication, literacy, and social and emotional growth. She created Finnegan the Dragon, leveraging her experiences as a professional musician and working with special needs children to develop a learning system that directly addresses passive screen time a