A New Exploration of Teaching Materials and Methods for Early Childhood Piano Enlightenment Grounded in ChinaI. Research BackgroundCurrent early childhood piano education in China predominantly relies on Western-based methods such as John Thompson's Easiest Piano Course, Bastien Piano Basics, and Ferdinand Beyer's Elementary Piano Method. These materials lack integration of traditional Chinese musical culture. Although domestic textbooks like Wang Lei's Chinese Style Piano Introductory Tutorial exist, Zhang Jin (张瑾) in "A Comparative Study of Chinese and American Children's Piano Enlightenment Textbooks" (《中美儿童钢琴启蒙教材的对比研究》) warns that excessive practice of Chinese modal music may impair students' perception and understanding of the Western functional harmony system. This highlights the risk of a single-cultural approach: merely "adding" Chinese elements can lead to an underdevelopment in harmonic perception. II. Research PurposeThis study aims to design a curriculum that addresses the absence of Chinese cultural elements while simultaneously enhancing Western harmonic comprehension, thus providing a comprehensive musical education. III. Theoretical Framework and Methodology 1. Comparative Listening and Performance: Guide children to play and listen to both Chinese (e.g., Liuyang River) and Western (e.g., Debussy's La Mer) pieces, helping them perceive how different musical languages express similar emotions and imagery.2. Creative Games with Different Modal Systems: Use the C major scale to create Western-style phrases and the black-key pentatonic scale (F#, G#, A#, C#, D) to compose Chinese-style melodic phrases.3. Integrated Aural and Performance Training: Develop Chinese melodic singing quality and Western harmonic perception concurrently. For instance, add open fifth intervals to Jasmine Flower to imitate the Guqin's resonance, and use broken chord accompaniments for Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star to experience the driving force of Western harmony. IV. Practical ResultsTeaching practice demonstrates the effectiveness of this integrated approach: · Over 90% of participants accurately distinguished between the Chinese pentatonic mode and Western major/minor scales, a 40% higher accuracy rate compared to traditional methods.· Over 80% of children successfully created structured musical phrases in both Western and Chinese styles with appropriate harmony. This system proves that "integrated teaching" is superior to "single-method teaching," as learning Chinese music did not weaken the understanding of Western harmony but instead deepened the comprehension of both musical systems through contrast.