Music in School Is Good for Kids!

MENC members...Please pass this information on to interested parents. Feel free to make additional copies! Contact Elizabeth Lasko at MENC (elizabet@menc.org or 1-800-336-3768) for more information on MENC’s Associate Membership Section for Friends, Supporters, Advocates and Patrons of Music Education.

Parents...for information on encouraging teens’ musical talents, helping your young child practice, and choosing a music teacher, please visit The FamilyEducation Network...where you will find MENC’s suggestions! Log on to www.familyeducation.com and search for "music." Browse the results for articles "Brought to you by MENC: The National Association for Music Education."

Some Research Findings About How Music Study Helps Students

A research team exploring the link between music and intelligence reported that music training is far superior to computer instruction in dramatically enhancing children’s abstract reasoning skills, the skills necessary for learning math and science. – Shaw, Rauscher, Levine, Wright, Dennis and Newcomb, "Music training causes long-term enhancement of preschool children’s spatial-temporal reasoning," Neurological Research, Vol. 19, February 1997

Students in two Rhode Island elementary schools who were given an enriched, sequential, skill-building music program showed marked improvement in reading and math skills. Students in the enriched program who had started out behind the control group caught up to statistical equality in reading, and pulled ahead in math. – Gardiner, Fox, Jeffrey and Knowles, as reported in Nature, May 23, 1996

Students with coursework/experience in music performance and music appreciation scored higher on the SAT: 53 points higher on the verbal and 39 points higher on the math for music performance, and 61 points higher on the verbal and 42 points higher on the math for music appreciation than students with no arts participation. – 1999 College-Bound Seniors National Report: Profile of SAT Program Test Takers, The College Entrance Examination Board, Princeton, New Jersey

Researchers found that children given piano lessons significantly improved in their spatial-temporal IQ scores (important for some types of mathematical reasoning) compared to children who received computer lessons, casual singing, or no lessons. – Rauscher, F.H., Shaw, G.L., Levine, L.J., Wright, E.L., Dennis, W.R., and Newcomb, R. (1997) Music training causes long-term enhancement of preschool children’s spatial temporal reasoning. Neurological Research, 19, 1-8.

A McGill University study found that pattern recognition and mental representation scores improved significantly for students given piano instruction over a three-year period. They also found that self-esteem and musical skills measures improved for the students given piano instruction. – Costa-Giomi, E. (1998, April). The McGill Piano Project: Effects of three years of piano instruction on children’s cognitive abilities, academic achievement, and self-esteem. Paper presented at the meeting of the Music Educators National Conference, Phoenix, AZ.

Researchers found that lessons on songbells (a standard classroom instrument) led to significant improvement of spatial-temporal scores for three- and four-year-olds. – Gromko, J.E., and Poorman, A.S. (1998) The effect of music training on preschooler's spatial-temporal task performance. Journal of Research in Music Education, 46, 173-181.  

For more music education facts and figures, visit www.menc.org/information/advocate/facts.html