"Study in the arts can help students to pay better attention in school due to structural brain changes created when the students were engaged in practicing their art form. When students pick up an instrument and practice a tricky passage, they are not merely improving their solo. They are also developing a high level of concentration that will aid them when they are working on their next algebra problem."
M. Posner University of Oregon, 2008.
Do Pull Out Music Lessons Harm Students Academically?
Those of you who worry about the effects of pull-out band lessons on the academic achievement of students can breathe a sigh of relief today! A new study (Hash 2011) has confirmed previous findings that students who are pulled from traditional classes to participate in band lessons perform just as well--if not better--than non-band students in state testing. Similar findings have been found for orchestra students. (Kinney, 2008).
This does not imply that participation in band makes one smarter; however, it does help to alleviate fears that pull-out lessons may harm students academically. According to this latest study, even the lowest-performing band students still out-perform the majority of the highest performing non-band students, even after several years of pull-out lessons. This may be good news for parents who worry about their children’s progress and for classroom teachers who may eventually be evaluated by their students’ performance on standardized testing.
Organized music lessons appear to benefit children's IQ and academic performance--and the longer the instruction continues, the larger the effect, according to a study published in the May issue of the Journal of Educational Psychology (Vol. 98, No. 2).
Students who study the arts, especially music, outperform their non-arts peers on mathematics assessments.Arts integrated math instruction also facilitates mastery of computation and estimation skills, and challenging concepts like fractions.
Harris, M. A. (2007). Differences in mathematics scores between students who receive traditional Montessori instruction and students who receive music enriched Montessori instruction. Journal for Learning through the Arts, 3. 5 Kinney, D. W., & Forsythe, J. L. (2005). The effects of the arts IMPACT curriculum upon student performance on the Ohio fourth-grade proficiency test. Bulletin of the Council for
Research in Music Education, 164, 35-48.
In a longitudinal study of 25,000 secondary school students, those with higher involvement in the arts scored better on measures of persistence than their peers with lower arts involvement."
Catterall, J. S. (1998). Involvement in the arts and success in secondary school. American for the Arts Monographs, 1(9).
How music training alters the teenage brain
Music training initiated during high school might hone brain development Date:July 20, 2015 Source:Northwestern University Summary:Music training, begun as late as high school, may help improve the teenage brain's responses to sound and sharpen hearing and language skills, suggests a new study. The authors say that these results highlight music's place in the high school curriculum. According to the authors, high school music training -- increasingly disfavored due to funding shortfalls -- might hone brain development and improve language skills. Music training, begun as late as high school, may help improve the teenage brain's responses to sound and sharpen hearing and language skills, suggests a new Northwestern University study. The research, to be published the week of July 20 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), indicates that music instruction helps enhance skills that are critical for academic success. The gains were seen during group music classes included in the schools' curriculum, suggesting in-school training accelerates neurodevelopment. "While music programs are often the first to be cut when the school budget is tight, these results highlight music's place in the high school curriculum," said Nina Kraus, senior study author and director of Northwestern's Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory at the School of Communication. "Although learning to play music does not teach skills that seem directly relevant to most careers, the results suggest that music may engender what educators refer to as 'learning to learn,'" Kraus added. Kraus and colleagues recruited 40 Chicago-area high school freshmen in a study that began shortly before school started. They followed these children longitudinally until their senior year.
Nearly half the students had enrolled in band classes, which involved two to three hours a week of instrumental group music instruction in school. The rest had enrolled in junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC), which emphasized fitness exercises during a comparable period. Both groups attended the same schools in low-income neighborhoods. Electrode recordings at the start of the study and three years later revealed that the music group showed more rapid maturation in the brain's response to sound. Moreover, they demonstrated prolonged heightened brain sensitivity to sound details. All participants improved in language skills tied to sound-structure awareness, but the improvement was greater for those in music classes, compared with the ROTC group.
According to the authors, high school music training -- increasingly disfavored due to funding shortfalls -- might hone brain development and improve language skills. The stable processing of sound details, important for language skills, is known to be diminished in children raised in poverty, raising the possibility that music education may offset this negative influence on sound processing."Our results support the notion that the adolescent brain remains receptive to training, underscoring the importance of enrichment during the teenage years," the authors wrote.
The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Northwestern University. The original item was written by Julie Deardorff. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference: 1.Adam T. Tierney, Jennifer Krizman, and Nina Kraus. Music training alters the course of adolescent auditory development. PNAS, July 2015 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1505114112
"Arts education helps students become better readers and writers. This instruction increases reading readiness and word fluency in early grades and continues to improve reading comprehension and writing skills throughout middle and high school."
Podlozny, A. (2000). Strengthening verbal skills through the use of classroom drama: A clear link. Journal of Aesthetic Education, 34, 239-276. 2 Walker, E., Tabone, C., & Weltsek, G. (2011). When achievement data meet drama and arts integration. Language Arts, 88, 365-372.
Brain Imaging Shows Enhanced Executive Brain Function in People with Musical Training
A controlled study using functional MRI brain imaging reveals a possible biological link between early musical training and improved executive functioning in both children and adults, report researchers at Boston Children's Hospital. The study, appearing online June 17 in the journal PLOS ONE, uses functional MRI of brain areas associated with executive function, adjusting for socioeconomic factors.
Executive functions are the high-level cognitive processes that enable people to quickly process and retain information, regulate their behaviors, make good choices, solve problems, plan and adjust to changing mental demands.
"Since executive functioning is a strong predictor of academic achievement, even more than IQ, we think our findings have strong educational implications," says study senior investigator Nadine Gaab, PhD, of the Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience at Boston Children's.
"While many schools are cutting music programs and spending more and more time on test preparation, our findings suggest that musical training may actually help to set up children for a better academic future."
Boston Children's Hospital. "Brain imaging shows enhanced executive brain function in people with musical training." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 17 June 2014. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/06/140617211020...