Science and teaching theories show that repetition is a great learning technique for children. Repetition helps kids not only pick up information—but also recall that information well throughout their lifetime. Ergo, where pop music in the 21st century is concerned, we can probably thank Katy Perry for helping our kids learn what opposites are.
Here’s why, in 2008, Perry’s multi-platinum song Hot N Cold reached number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. That represents many, many, many times that our wee ‘uns have had the opportunity to hear the radio refrains of “You’re hot and cold / You’re yes and you’re no / You’re in and you’re out / You’re up and you’re down.”
But that kind of learning tends to be an anomaly in the Top 40 world.
Let’s be honest, pop music isn’t exactly known for its educational value. And when played on repeat, some popular ditties could even be considered downright harmful to young children’s learning of language, numeracy and the general world around them.
So, if you don’t want to screw up your tot’s early education, here are seven songs you should possibly consider removing from your playlist.
7 Learning to Spell
Song to avoid: Fergalicious (Fergie & Will.I.Am)
Some words by their nature are just trick y to spell correctly, but others are no-brainers, their phonetic structure makes them easy to spell time and time again. In the future, a catchy 2006 Fergie song may eventually be blamed as the catalyst of erroneous spelling of the word “tasty.”
In Fergalicious, her first single off her debut album The Duchess, Fergie’s Black Eyed Peas co-conspirator Will.I.Am raps about how delicious Fergie is, inserting an erroneous “e” between the “t” and the “y.” While the word Taste does include the 'e' to make the letter 'a' sound like 'A', the adjective does not include the 'e' at all.
This is a skill that needs to be practiced
Making matters worse, will.i.am repeats “T-to-the-A to the S-T-E-Y” approximately 10 times. TEN times! With that amount of repetition, there's going to be a whole generation of kids who's spelling of the word tasty will be forever marked by this song.
6 Learning to Count
Song to avoid: 1234 (Feist)
As young children’s brains develop, they begin to show an increasing ability to understand their environment, and use that knowledge to begin to solve problems in their daily life. One such aspect of knowledge is the ability to count.
Feist’s 1234 is an incredibly cute and jaunty song about the memories of oft-unrequited teenaged love. In an era of sexually-charged and explicit lyrics, this ditty is actually rather sweet—certainly not a danger to pre-schoolers’ ears. Or is it?
Almost everything depends on your ability to count
Well, if your child is just beginning to learn his or her numbers, you may want to hold off on playing this song on repeat—because in counting from one to ten, Feist skips over the numbers seven and eight. A Kindergarten teacher's worst nightmare.
5 Learning the Days of the Week
Songs to avoid: I Gotta Feeling (Black Eyed Peas)
By age four, most children are developing some sense of time: for example, concepts like morning, afternoon, night; later versus sooner; and days of the week. They'll use this knowledge to get out of nap time and avoid bedtime fro as long as possible.
Practically speaking, I Gotta Feeling’s subject matter—that is, hard partying—probably isn’t good for kids regardless. But the grammatically incorrect title aside (saying “I gotta” instead of “I’ve got” or “I have a”), this song has great potential to really confuse the kidlets.
Knowing how many days in the week are very important
Why? Because it popularizes two things: the idea that there are two Saturdays and eight—not seven—days in a week; and that weekends are three days long. If only!
4 Learning Irregular Verbs
Song to avoid: What Goes Around Comes Around (Justin Timberlake)
When it comes to many verbs (action words), the past tense is generally formed by adding “ed” at the end. When a child can’t yet conjugate, they may add “ed” to make everything past tense, as in “I goed” instead of “I went.” And according to experts, that’s actually good news for language development, because it means your child is picking up the basics of verb conjugation.
However, given the complexity of the English language, we also have irregular verbs—and these verbs live by their own set of rules. For example, the past tense of “weed” is weeded. The past tense of “succeed” is “succeeded.” So would it not follow that the past tense of “bleed” is “bleeded”?
Nope. Bleed is an irregular verb.
In his song What Goes Around Comes Around, Justin Timberlake chants the following lyrics: “You cheated girl / My heart bleeded, girl.” Technically, the word should have been “bled.” So either Justin was just in need of a quick rhyme and said “screw it” to grammar, or he understands irregular verbs just like a 4-year-old does.
3 Subject-Verb Agreement
Song to avoid: Break Free (Ariana Grande)
The number of cringe-worthy lyrics in this song is plentiful. Take the following snippet from Break Free: “I only wanna die alive / Never by the hands of a broken heart / Don’t wanna hear you lie tonight / Now that I’ve become who I really are.”
Besides wanting to “die alive” (a terrible attempt at an oxymoron), Ariana Grande quite possibly committed the worst offense of subject-verb agreement in pop history with “I...are.”
Maybe she failed English at an early age?
Really, songwriters? You couldn’t have some up with something else to rhyme with “heart”? How about art? Chart? Part? Even fart? Come to think of it, “are” doesn’t really make for a great match with “heart,” either. So what gives, songwriters?
2 Avoiding Double-Negatives
Song to avoid: Ghostbusters (Ray Parker Jr.)
This warning comes with a heavy heart, because I love this song! What’s more, kids adore it too. There’s nothing as cute as watching a bunch of four- and five-year-olds jumping around, screaming “Ghostbusters!” at the top of their lungs.
But because of Ghostbusters’ popularity amongst children, it’s important to be aware of this frightening grammatical error: the use of double negatives. Shudder.
Double negatives just sound awkward
When Ray Parker Jr. says “I ain’t afraid of no ghost,” what is he really saying? After all, two negatives make a positive, right? So is he saying he IS afraid of ghosts?
Basically, double-negatives are a double no-no (or, would that be a double no?). They are confusing and should be avoided in the English language at all cost. In other words: if you want your children to communicate well, don’t repeatedly play music that don’t not use no double—or, for that matter, triple or even quadruple—negatives. (Yeah, I don’t know what that sentence means either.)
1 Understanding Homynyms
Song to avoid: Tearin’ Up My Heart (*N SYNC)
Homonyms are words that sound the same, but are spelled differently and have different meanings. Studies show us that kids often speak using homonyms from a young age, but may struggle later on in elementary school as they learn the correct spelling for different words. In other words: homonyms can be a really confusing concept to grasp.
Technically, listening to Tearin’ Up My Heart won’t screw up your kids’ development. If you read the lyrics, they’re not offensive to learning development. The real problem is with the music video.
It's easy to confuse to and too, but to confuse them with two?
Here’s why: in the video, Timberlake’s band members Joey Fatone and JC Chavez erroneously hold up two fingers to represent the “too” during the lyrics “…when we are apart, I feel it too.” (Ironically, Chavez does this—you got it—two times.) Just watch the video, and you’ll see it at the 2:11 and 3:03 marks.
(That said, there is good news for moms who watch the video: we all get a first glimpse at the burgeoning sexiness of one young Justin Timberlake, lying on a bed in a tight white tank top—just fast-forward to the 1:48 mark. And...you’re welcome.)