| The foundation for all social and academic progress within the school setting is built on a child's ability to learn to read and to read fluently. Impairment in the skill of reading spawns academic and vocational underachievement, remaining a risk factor for later school drop out, delinquency, and depression (Meyer & Felton, 1999). Reading specialists have concluded that phonology is the core deficit for reading disabilities (Stanovich, 1994).; Non-invasive neuroimaging and brain scanning techniques have mapped music functioning in the brain. Findings point to an interrelationship between the brain region specialized for music constructs of spatial and temporal components and the brain area specialized for phonemic awareness (Weinberger & McKenna, 1988).; The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of a music enhanced curriculum on spatial temporal task performance, reading achievement, and phonemic awareness skills of children in kindergarten through third grades. Sixty-six students representing the student body of an arts based elementary charter school in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, were randomly assigned to either experience a music enhanced curriculum, provided by a quintet from the Winston-Salem Symphony Orchestra, for 12 weeks, or not. Pre- and posttest scores for spatial temporal task performance, reading achievement, and phonemic awareness skills were measured, using the Auditory Visual Integration Test (AVI; Rattan, 1989), Woodcock Johnson III Tests of Achievement (WJ III; Woodcock, McGrew, & Mather, 2001), and Predictive Assessment of Reading (PAR; Wood, 2002), respectively. Students experiencing the music curriculum demonstrated improvement in accuracy and fluency for auditory temporal tasks, an increase in auditory visual integration skills, and higher phonemic awareness scores.; Reading achievement was not impacted by the music treatment. Grade level differences emerged for auditory visual integration, most likely as a function of developmental age differences. There was no differential influence of the treatment according to grade level. Results suggest that a music enhanced curriculum enhances spatial temporal tasks and phonemic awareness, underlying skills necessary for development of reading competence. |
