Learning to play an instrument has long been associated with better initial reading capabilities, as well as mathematical, but the way this happens was not clear. A new study helps to understand why.
A study recently in BIORHIVIVE revealed that musical formation seems to increase reading skills in young children, by improving their ability to recognize and manipulate the sounds that make up the words.
Playing an instrument involves many skills. “Not only do you need to read the notes. It implies learning a new musical notation alphabet, but it is also necessary to listen to the sounds and coordinate the movements of the hands and eyes,” explains, to, the leader of the investigation, Maria Garcia-de-Soriafrom the University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom.
This means that musical formation could increase our abilities general cognitive, our memory or our domain of sounds – Any of these could lead to better reading skills.
This study focused on 57 children (practically half boys half girls), aged 5 to 9 years. About half had been learning an instrument for at least one month and practiced at least half an hour a week, while the rest did non -musical extracurricular activities.
It was found that the children who were learning an instrument had better performance than others in phonological awareness tests. Furthermore, also demonstrated better reading skills.
Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize and manipulate the sounds, or phonemes, which make up the word.
In another part of the experiment, researchers used electroencephalography to record children’s brain activity while listening to a recording of the ginger cookie man.
They found that a stronger neuronal activity in language -related centers in the left brain hemisphere was correlated with better reading results for all children.
However, the Musical Group presented higher reading scores even with lower levels of this activity, which, according to the team, suggests that they have a more developed language processingsimilar to that of adults.
“Adults tend to process music and speak more bilaterally, and sometimes more in the right hemisphere. Children with musical formation seem to have a speech follow-up more similar to that of adults,” explained Garcia-Sound.
This – writes the New Scientist – is linked to the way people change the way they read as their ability improveswith young children learning phonemes and then pronounced them.
“A phonological awareness is a step to learn to readfrom what makes sense that musical formation increases literacy by increasing sensitivity to phonology, ”explains, to the same magazine, Anastasia Klimovich-Graywhich was part of the study.
And this It is not necessarily a unique way. “Music increases reading, but reading can also increase the way music is playing later,” says Garcia-de-Solo.
As researchers emphasize, the study has controlled factors such as socioeconomic status and cognitive general capacity, suggesting that these are not just children with better reading skills to be more likely to dedicate themselves to an instrument.
