I believe education is determined and vastly improved by the content and richness of a child's environment. For music, this includes listening to recordings, watching adults and children play, and interacting with the symbols that constitute reading. Just as children learn their letters and sounds before learning to read, early exposure to the symbols of music notation eases the process of learning to read.

There has been an ongoing debate about the efficacy of "phonics" versus "whole language" learning. Suzuki advocated the "whole language" approach, by exposing children to music they had already polished (book 1 music while in book 2, etc.); but he also did not clearly communicate to the international community that music notation (in this comparison, "phonics") was taught in the public schools in Japan.

The music theory curriculum I developed, along with that of the Music Mind Games approach, strives to fill the gap left by, in this case, public schools (or by the lack of a full picture of Suzuki's curriculum). Some students can learn solely from the "whole language" approach, but studies show that these students usually have an immense amount of support at home. Rather than rely solely on the parent to teach music notation (since not many parents know music theory as well as they know language), Suzuki teachers can all benefit from incorporating music theory into their lesson curriculum (as a class or a portion of the private lesson).