Richards Institute of Education Through Music

Education Through Music (ETM) is a language-based music program in which song, movement and interactive play promote social-emotional, cognitive, and musical development in children. Using language-based song games, we provide a foundation for the child to develop literacy skills in both the music and traditional classroom settings.

Education Through Music was developed over 50 years ago by Mary Helen Richards with the purpose of providing a higher quality music education for all children.  Based on her interactions with Zoltan Kodaly, she developed a way to lead children to the study of music beginning with the song experience game and moving to musical notation. Over the years, Education Through Music has attracted not only music educators but classroom teachers that seek to understand how to educate children through play and song-based music.  Steeped in both child development and the latest neuroscience as it relates to education, our program seeks to support teachers in best-practice work with children in classrooms in five fundamental areas.  These areas include music, language, social-emotional interaction, movement, and creativity/imagination (cognitive development). 

We offer several opportunities for teachers to study Education Through Music. Throughout the school year, we provide in-person courses across the country that cover the philosophy, materials, and practice.  We study the development of the child brain, from social-emotional development to auditory development to laying foundations for literacy (both music literacy and language literacy). We approach this through song, movement, and the state of play, building a repertoire that helps bring focus, motivation, and joy to classrooms. These sessions total 30 hours of study. University Credit through CSU Bakersfield is available to teachers who would like to earn 3 units of college course credit. 

We also host our summer conference called Colloquium. This week-long event allows participants to immerse themselves in study by observing lessons with children engaging in the song experiences taught by experienced master teachers. Each afternoon, we offer specialized breakout sessions on specific topics, as well as large group sessions filled with whole group song experiences with rounds, canons, and partner songs.

In addition to our school-year courses and summer Colloquia, we also provide one-on-one teacher coaching through our Mentorship and Consultancy programs.

Our organization has taught and worked with thousands of teachers and children across the United States, Canada, and Japan. Through in-person as well as online discussions with the educators who take our courses and from surveys sent out each year, we receive feedback about how we positively affect children and adults. The teachers using our work report to us that children are more engaged are highly motivated, more focused, and develop stronger community in their classrooms. Teachers also report more highly attuned musical skills (such as beat, rhythm, pitch identification) and that their auditory accuracy and acuity is more highly developed. This leads to a deeper ability to develop both music literacy and language literacy. 

Teachers also report their own increased effectiveness in the classroom with using materials, understanding the children’s needs, using clearer language and communication in their teaching, improving student behavior, and increasing student engagement.