HARMONY GARDEN is responsive to the research in language development.  We have long known that music is critical to language development.  The element of the beat lies inside all language. When children speak nursery rhymes and pat steady beat, they speak more clearly. When teachers encourage children to keep patting steady beat while they sing, no one child races ahead to finish the song first. Children also sing more “in tune,” and enunciate more clearly when following a beat. High/Scope Educational Research Foundation’s statistics on the steady beat factor suggest that students who demonstrate beat-competence and beat-independence are the same students who perform well in all areas of the academic curriculum (Weikart, 1998).   We believe this outdoor feature will be of great interest to children who have no experience with acoustical instruments and benefit children learning English as a second language.