OPPapers.com

Music Education Benefits

Most children love music class. I remember looking forward to music class when I was a young student in elementary school. We sang songs read from hand-written overhead transparencies as our music teacher banged out the melodies on an old piano. We all came out of music class feeling joyful, and would continue singing the songs as we walked down the hallway back to our classroom. To this day I (along with several of my old classmates), can remember the lyrics and melodies to a few of the more memorable songs from grade school music class and chorus. However, I will refrain from belting out those old tunes at this time! The school provided musical instrument lessons to students when they reached fourth grade. We know now that musical instruction provides much more than simply experiencing the sheer joy of music. Scientific evidence proves that musical instruction skills actually help students. These benefits are applicable to the general student body, and for disabled and/or special needs students.

Musical Instruction can lead to success in school:

Success in society is predicated on success in school. Skills learned through the discipline of music transfer to study skills, communication skills, and cognitive skills useful in every part of the curriculum. There are a number of hard facts reported about the ways that music study is correlated with success in school:

* A study of 237 second grade children used piano keyboard training and newly designed math software to demonstrate improvement in math skills. The group scored 27% higher on proportional math and fractions tests than children that used only the math software. Graziano, Amy, Matthew Peterson, and Gordon Shaw, "Enhanced learning of proportional math through music training and spatial-temporal training." Neurological Research 21 (March 1999).

* In an analysis of U.S. Department of Education data on more than 25,000 secondary school students (NELS:88, National Education Longitudinal Survey),...