Music literacy

I am currently taking the Kodaly summer program, and I have noticed that it reinforces music literacy for all ages. When children are taught music, it is done by singing different songs. I had an opportunity to teach my colleagues a rhyme using pictures instead of written lyrics. When I sang the song pointing the pictures they recognized the pattern of the music and they were able to understand and sing the song. The drawings that I made which substituted the written lyrics, helped my colleagues connect the picture to the lyrics that I was giving them. As we learned a new song, we also had discussions over the words used in the song. Although I did not have any written lyrics my colleagues were able to follow through with the pictures pretty well. I wonder if the same thing could be said about the students that we actually have to teach. The different activities that we are learning through this program helps us achieve a better sense of music literacy. What defines music literacy. Children can hear and sing the songs that have been learned inside thier heads. They internalize the music so that they can have a better perspective of music and by doing so they can improvise and expand their knowledge in general.