Research from the University of Vermont and undertaken by Dr Nina Kraus at the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory at Northwestern University indicates that children who learn a musical instrument might be getting a nice bonus of improving their cognitive function as well.
Studies have shown that learning music might help children when it comes to improving their attention; enhancing working memory; and developing better organisation and planning skills. There’s also reason to believe children who learn an instrument might develop coping skills that help them to control their emotions and even reduce anxiety.
Rhythm abilities are also closely linked to early reading skills. It’s been shown that pre-schoolers who can tap in time with beats have stronger reading readiness and more precise neural encoding of speech (Woodruff, Carr et al 2014 PNAS).
A study by Nina Kraus found that giving children regular group music lessons for five or more hours a week as they matured helped to prevent any decline in reading skills that might be expected due to life circumstances such as growing up in poverty. After two years of musical training, the results showed the musical group was faster and more accurate at distinguishing one sound from another, particularly when there was background noise, compared to a group that did not participate in any musical activity.
It seems that the benefits of learning an instrument are wide-ranging, and certainly give children an advantage when it comes to reading. Another way to give students an advantage with reading comprehension is with CARS & STARS Online.
CARS & STARS Online is a digital reading comprehension program based on twelve core reading strategies that is designed to turn every student into a comfortable and proficient reader who can approach every type of text with an advanced level of reading comprehension.
A reader who has progressed through CARS & STARS Online won’t just be able to read a text, they’ll be able to determine why they think it was written and what the person who wrote it was trying to get them to think when they read it. What’s more, they’ll be able to do this and many more textual analysis skills as second nature rather than as additional work, because they’ve been made familiar with them across the breadth of the entire program.
CARS & STARS Online aims to take students and make them informed, evaluative interpreters of text. Reading comprehension is a more vital skill than ever, and a student schooled by CARS & STARS Online will be able to perform high-level textual analysis as second nature, on every text – whether they can play an instrument or not.
If you are interested in learning more about the CARS & STARS Online subscriptions and how they can help children to achieve better results, then sign up for a free trial to be an integral part of your child’s reading success.
