I am new to this forum!
I always teach school-grade students and in fact I have not experience in teaching someone younger than Grade 1.
I like to explore the possibility of teaching very young children piano as private lesson, not group lesson.
If you don't mind, I like to know the answers for the following:
Who is your youngest student?
How old is he or she when he started the lesson?
What material you use?
How old is he or she now?
What material he or she is playing now?
Do I need special certification to teach younger students?
What do you recommend in reading literature?
Any extra comments/ help/ opinions?

My youngest student, which I started a month ago, is now nearly 4. As this is my first "below grade" student, I'm charging far less, as I am learning as I go along. I'm using materials which focus on helping the student with the foundation - keyboard familiarity, counting, note recognition, solfege, etc. I expect we'll start a very elementary piece in 6 - 8 weeks. Lessons began at 15 minutes twice a week, and now are close to 25 minutes twice a week.

Your biggest problem is going to be the parents, not the child. The parents have to be absolutely committed to daily work with the child, NO EXCUSES are acceptable. You have to be willing and able to look the parent in the eye, and tell them point blank that if there's any sign of them not engaging the child daily, lessons will be dropped until the child is old enough to learn independently (and you might add, that could be five or more years into the future).

Good luck.

John

Current youngest student: first grade (6.5 yrs old)
started in preschool, soon after he turned 4
We used My First Piano Adventures level A, then transitioned to the mainstream primer
He is now in level 2B, and working on one octave scales and playing early classical literature level 1-2.

You don't have to have special certification, although it may be helpful to be trained in music courses for young children, such as Kindermusic, Music for Young Children, or Early Children Music and Movement Association.

Literature (I'm assuming you mean method books and materials) include Faber's My First Piano Adventures (go to pianoteaching.com to see teaching videos and ideas) as well as Music for Little Mozarts by Alfred. Both of these are worth checking out in detail, as they come with CDs, activity books, and the later comes with stuffed animals. Musikgarten also has a piano curriculum, but I think that may be targeted at the average age beginner.

I think at this age, the most important thing is parental support. It's going to be very hard to teach a child who cannot even read, and doesn't understand the concept of homework or practice, without a parent at the lesson to take notes and help them at home. Otherwise you'll be doing musical babysitting, which some teachers don't mind, but I've gotten tired of.

I think young children are so much fun, and it's so rewarding to be able to open up a new world of music and sound to them.

The youngest I have started have been just a bit younger than 5, but if got to work with someone younger than who seemed ready, I'd do it.

At our music school we have 30 students in our program for kids aged 3-5 years and every student is having an absolute blast.

Success at this age is entirely dependent on variability within a lesson. Our kids all have a 30 minute lesson but only 8 minutes are spent at the piano. The remaining time is filled with manipulative activities that give them the skills to predict musical patterns, sing-along activities that emphasize counting, card games that build number and pattern recognition, poetry finger warm-ups that work on finger strength and flexibility, and dancing activities that build rhythmic awareness.

If you have the opportunity to work with preschool-aged children go for it! As science has shown, exposure to, and exploration of music at this age is vital to the development of young minds.

And remember... there are benefits for the teachers as well. Kids who have a terrific early music experience will be a long-term client.

Good luck!

My youngest student ever was 3.5 (twins). Attention span wasn't there, behavior was bad. Now, I really don't want to take on any student who is younger than 4. The difference between 3.5 and 4 years I find it quite notable. Doesn't hurt to wait a bit. I also like the idea of telling a prospective student that they can't just sign up for piano because they feel like it. They need to grow up a bit more before they can start. Makes it more of a privilege than a paid right.

We don't take on students for private lessons at our school until they have completed Gr.1 in school for a couple of reasons.

First most students are not reading words yet so they don't have a sense of abstract concepts yet, which makes it more difficult if not impossible to teach them music notation. Second because they are not writing as well their finger dexterity is not as developed as it is after Gr. 1, again this is often an impediment to learning piano. And third gr. 1 is such a big year for learning and development of social skills that I encourage parents to let the kids focus on that for a year before taking on private lessons.

Having said all that I am a proponent of early childhood music classes provided they are taught by a trained and qualified teacher. In the past we have had two very talented teachers who have taken on this huge task and have been very successful at it. The teachers that we have had the most success with have been teachers who are experienced elementary school teachers as well as music majors. They also have to just love those little ones and know how to handle them or things can get out of hand.

Students who have come through these programs and have gone on to private lessons later have performed above average compared to students who have not.

So for students under the age of 7 keep them in early childhood programs or you are better off waiting until they have finished gr. 1 in my opinion. If you don't and the student starts to experience frustration or anxiety toward private lessons you run the risk of turning them off for ever. At that age they cannot express what they are feeling or why and end up feeling that they are not up to the task when in the end if you just waited a year things would have moved along a lot smoother and faster.