Students Enrolled in Instrumental Music Have Higher ELA Test Scores - Dr. Thomas Santone

In a 2018 study at a mid-sized public charter school in Camden, NJ, students enrolled in their instrumental music program were able to increase their PARCC ELA scores significantly when compared to students who were not enrolled in instrumental music. PARCC and NJ ASK scores from students who took instrumental music lessons were analyzed and compared to a randomized sample of the general population. It was found that there was no significant difference between the two groups in the ELA scores from 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades, but the students who began instrumental music lessons at the end of 5th grade and beginning of 6th grade scored significantly higher in the 6th, 7th, and 8th grade PARCC tests when compared to a randomized sample of non-band students.

Standardized testing data was analyzed from 2012-2017 where students enrolled in the instrumental band program were matched up with a randomized sample of non-music students. During their 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades (2012-2014), the students took the NJ ASK test. The state of New Jersey switched to the PARCC during the 2014-2015 school year, when the students were in the sixth grade.

For the ELA portion of the NJ ASK during the students' 3rd, 4th and 5th grades, the band group and non-band group's scores were statistically equal (p<0.05). Students then had an option to join band. After taking instrumental music lessons for at least 8 months, PARCC ELA scores of the band students where statistically higher when compared to the randomized sample of non-music students. This statistical significance continued throughout the students' middle school experience. The connection between music, brain activity and language skills has been known to researchers for years now. Back in 1995 Peter Fox et al. studied brain activity on piano players while playing Bach’s “Italian Concerto” and two-handed scales. They report several regions of the brain are active during the performance. These are the left lateral cerebellum and the right supplementary motor areas, which are known as the auditory association areas in the right temporal cortex.

With current technology, scientist have been able to take a closer look at the brain to see what brain functions are active while children are listening to and are playing music. Lehr (1998) writes that playing a musical instrument establishes more neural pathways in the brain. Because 80 to 90 percent of the brain's motor control capabilities regulate stimuli to and from the hands, mouth, and throat, playing a musical instrument at an early age can develop highly refined motor control and can stimulate almost the entire brain, increasing its total capabilities (Lehr, 1998). Lehr recommends introducing the recorder by the second grade, and band instruments by the fourth grade to help facilitate this growth.

Norman M. Weinberger, Ph.D., is a research professor and founder of University of California, Irvine's Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory and of the Music and Science Information Computer Archive [MuSICA]. He has done extensive research in this area. Weinberger's (1998) research concludes that, "Learning and performing music actually exercise the brain - not merely by developing specific music skills, but also by strengthening the synapses between brain cells" (p. 38). Weinberger also lists the major functional brain systems that depend on this synaptic strength. These include:

• The sensory and perceptual systems: auditory, visual, tactile, and kinesthetic • The cognitive system: symbolic, linguistic and reading • Planning movements: fine and gross muscle action and coordination • Feedback and evaluation of actions • The motivational/hedonic (pleasure) system • Learning memory (Weinberger, 1998, p. 38)

Weinberger (1998) also states that brain scans of students engaged in musical performance show that the entire cerebral cortex is active during the performance. The cerebral cortex is involved in many brain functions including memory, awareness, attention, thinking, language, and consciousness. If this is true, every student should be engaged in musical performance as part of class every day as a brain exercise, especially early in childhood, during pre-school years, when children are developing these brain functions. Weinberger concludes, "In short, making music actively engages the brain synapses, and there is good reason to believe that it increases the brain's capacity by increasing the strengths of connections among neurons" (p. 38) and "music making appears to be the most extensive exercise for brain cells and their synaptic interconnections" (p. 39).

Wilfried Gruhn (2005), Emeritus Professor of Music Education, University of Music Freiburg, Germany, agrees with Weinberg, stating:

"Music can stimulate the growth of brain structures and connects many activated brain areas" (p. 100).

Gruhn goes on to say that music can act as a stimulus for the auditory cortex, which is underdeveloped in young children. As a music educator, Gruhn believes that the highest degree of musical potential in children is right after birth, after which that potential win decrease and eventually fade away without proper stimulation. If this is true, we would have to conclude that all forms of early childhood development classes and pre-school classes should contain an intensive music program.

Previous research has led us to believe that most musical processing takes place in the right hemisphere of the brain. Donald Hodges (2000b), Professor of Music at University of Texas at San Antonio, states that musical processing is not just limited to the right hemisphere of the brain, rather it involves the entire brain: front/ back, top/bottom, and left/right. He also writes that musical experiences involve the auditory, visual, cognitive, affective, memory, and motor systems of the brain. Music reading activated an area of the brain's right side parallel to an area on the left side activated during language reading (Hodges 2000b). Instrumental music lessons as part of a school curriculum would be the easiest way to activate functions across the entire brain.

There is further research to back up Hodges' research. Ella Wilcox (2000), Associate Editor for Teaching Music magazine, wrote that in children who begin stringed-instrument or keyboard lessons before the age of seven have an increased cerebral hemisphere and increased thickness of neural fibers connecting the two hemispheres of the brain compared to those children who are not exposed to instruments. Bennett Reimer (2004), a professor emeritus in the School of Music at Northwestern University agrees, saying musical instruments "activate both brain hemispheres and involve cerebral cortex activity and memory retrieval mechanisms" (p. 23). To play almost all band instruments, the student is required to use both hands in a way that most other school activities, including sports, do not; therefore, the anterior corpus callosum, which carries most the communication between the two hemispheres of the brain is larger in musicians than in non-musicians (Reimer 2004). Research by Schlaug, Jancke, Staiger, & Steinmetz (1995) at Harvard Medical School reported that the anterior half of the corpus callosum was indeed larger in musicians. They also observed an increase in interhemispheric communication and hemispheric symmetry of sensorimotor areas in musician's brains.

Schlaug (2001) also writes, “Our main hypothesis was that early and intensive training in keyboard and string players and the requirement for increased and faster interhemispheric exchange in order to perform bimanual complex motor sequences might lead to structural changes in the callosal anatomy” (p. 285). He found that the anterior half of the corpus callosum in musicians was significantly larger.

Schlaug, Jancke, Huang & Steinmetz (1995) also found through magnetic resonance imaging that the left planum temporale region of the brain is larger in musicians. According to Moreno (2009), the planum temporale region is associated with verbal memory.

Schlaug (2001) reports that there are several regions in the brain that show “some form of adaptation to extraordinary challenges and requirements of performance” (p. 281). These regions are the corpus callosum, motor cortex, and the cerebellum. Schlaug theorizes musicians can be used as a model for “functional and structural adaptation of the brain” (p. 281) because much of the musical training that musicians receive occurs at younger ages, when the brain can still adapt to these challenges of learning a musical instrument. Schlaug states that challenges of learning a music instrument may lead to these functional and structural changes to the brain.

Reimer (2004) also notes that musical activity utilizes widely distributed brain activity because each music role, i.e. improvising, singing, composing, arranging, uses a different set of brain involvements. Because of this, Reimer feels, "Every musical experience that we offer our student affect their brains, bodies, and feelings. In short it changes their minds permanently, and, if we are conscientious, it does so progressively" (p. 25). This is more support that music making utilizes processes and stimulates areas across the entire brain.

John W. Flohr, Daniel C. Miller, and Roger deBeus (1996) wrote that we can look into the child’s active brain through an electroencephalogram [EEG]. They wrote what EEG data can reveal about children and learning. Through their work, they have published five hypotheses (1996):

• The impact of music education may be dramatic and specific, not merely influencing the general direction of development, but actually affecting the circuitry of the human brain. • Our music education programs need to emphasize preschool music. Early care and nurture can have a long-lasting impact on how people develop, their ability to learn, and their capacity to regulate their own emotions. • There is an indication that a significant window of opportunity for music learning in in early childhood. • The brain’s plasticity also means that there are times when negative experiences or the absence of appropriate stimulation are more likely to have serious and sustained effects. Good preschool and elementary music education experiences are important for the music development of young children. • Substantial evidence amassed by neuroscientists and child development experts over the last decade points to the wisdom and efficacy of early intervention. The findings indicate that all music educators and parents should be informed about the advantages of early music education. (p. 32)

Hallam (2010) set out to see how music impacts intellectual, social and personal development in children. She writes that “extensive active engagement with music” (p. 270) can actually cause the cerebral cortex to reorganize itself which can change how the brain can process information. These changes can become permanent if the engagement with music occurs at a young enough age. These changes in the brain can transfer into other domains if the processes involved are similar. For example, processing music and processing speech uses many of the same shared processing systems. Hallam states that one benefit of musical training is that it can “sharpen the brain’s early encoding of linguistic sound leading to superior coding” (p. 271). Essentially, as Hallam writes, “Musical training improves how the brain processes the spoken word. It improves the ability to distinguish between rapidly changing sounds. Those with musical training have superior brain-stem encoding of linguistic

pitch patterns” (p. 272). Not only that, but Hallam concludes that the younger the child is exposed to active music participation, and the longer the engagement lasts, the greater the impact.

This ability of brain to change that Hallam (2010) mentioned above is known as brain plasticity or neuroplasticity. Neuroscientists have been studying how music can change the brain for about 15-20 years now. Munte, Altenmuller, & Jancke (2002) write that “professional musicians represent an ideal model in which to investigate plastic changes in the human brain” (p. 473). They claim that, “Performing music at a professional level is arguably among that most complex of human accomplishments” (p. 473). In order to perform music on a professional level, musicians must undergo thousands of hours of training and practice to master such complex compositions.

These thousands of hours of practice can actually re-wire the brain and make some areas larger. Wan and Schlaug (2010) write that “Engaging in musical activities not only shapes the organization of the developing brain but also produces long-lasting changes even after brain maturation is complete” (p. 567).

According to Anita Collins (2014):

“Playing a musical instrument engages practically every area of the brain at once, especially the visual, auditory, and motor cortices” (para. 4).

She goes on to say that practicing a musical instrument strengthens these brain functions and these strengthened functions can help us complete other activities.

In other words, as Collins summarizes, “Playing music is the brain’s equivalent of a full-body workout” (para. 3).

Because of this workout, several areas in the brain, including the planum temporale, the anterior corpus callosum, the primary hand motor area, and the cerebellum, “differ in their structure and size between musicians and control subjects” (Munte et al., 2002, p. 474). Hyde et al. (2009) claim that these structural changes in the brain can happen after only 15 months of musical training in early childhood. Collins (2014) states that these changes in the brain may allow musicians to solve problems more effectively and creatively, in both academic and social settings. Because making music also involves crafting and understanding its emotional content and message, musicians often have higher levels of executive function, a category of interlinked tasks that includes planning, strategizing, and attention to detail, and requires simultaneous analysis of both cognitive and emotional aspects. (para 5-6)

For over a hundred years, proponents of music in schools have claimed that music training helps students achieve higher levels of academic success. There have been claims that participation in band, orchestra, and choir can help students improve academic achievement, self-discipline, citizenship, and even personal hygiene. (Morrison, 1994). Gardiner, Fox, Knowles, and Jeffrey (1996) believe that arts training can help children become better students in school. They believe “when students discover that participation in arts activities is pleasurable, they become motivated to acquire skills in the arts” (p. 284). This motivation to acquire new skills, “students’ general attitude towards learning and school can improve.” In addition, “learning arts skills forces mental ‘stretching’ useful to other areas of learning” (p. 284).

Costa-Giomi (2004) found that piano instruction results in a significant increase in the development of self-esteem while a Demorest and Morrison study (2000) claimed that “Students in pull-out programs and those with greater years spent in arts education maintain a higher than average level of academic achievement” (p. 38). In another finding, Demorest and Morrison (2000) point out that the longer students participate in music, “the greater the improvement in academic performance will be” (p. 38). As much as this could be an indication that continued participation in music will result in greater academic achievement, the authors warn that “students who are the highest academic achievers are the ones who tend to remain music participants throughout their school years, while students who struggle academically may be more likely to end their musical involvement early” (p. 38).

Bilhartz et al. (2000) set out to see if early music training had any effect on cognitive development. He gave the experimental group of 4-6-year-olds a 30-week, 75-minute weekly structured music curriculum. He found that the students receiving the music curriculum showed significant gains in the Stanford-Binet Bead Memory subtest and in the Young Child Music Skills Assessment.

More recently, Schellenberg (2016) reported research in which he took 144 children, randomly assigned them to either keyboard lessons, voice lessons, drama lessons, or no lessons. He found that children in the music groups “exhibited greater increases in full-scale IQ” (p. 511). Schellenberg writes, "Music lessons involve long periods of focused attention, daily practice, reading musical notation, memorization of extended musical passages, learning about a variety of music structures, and progressive mastery of technical skills and the conventions governing the expression of emotions in performance." (p. 511)

Schellenberg believes that the combination of these experiences can transfer into cognitive ability, especially during early childhood development when the brain is highly plastic and “sensitive to environmental influence” (p. 511).

Morrison (1994) studied the First Follow-Up to the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, conducted by the National Center for Educational Statistics. In his paper, he points out that even though only 22.8% of students in that study identified themselves as participating in a school-based musical activity, the percentage of those students receiving special recognition and honors were much higher. For example, while 22.8% of a school’s population participate in music activities, 29.5% of students elected class officer, 28.6% of students receiving academic honor, and 27.2% of students who received recognition for good grades were in a music activity.

Another factor that improves academic achievement is social and personal development. Hallam (2010) writes that “achievement may in part be mediated by an increase in social and cultural capital” (p. 278). This social and cultural capital comes from the participation in music and related activities. Broh (2002) concluded that these social benefits were likely to lead to higher self-esteem in the children in turn leading to increased motivation and self-efficacy.

There are many different ways music can help children develop and achieve academic success. Suzanne Gellens, in her book Activities That Build the Young Child's Brain, states that when students

are happy and enjoying something, chemicals are released in the brain that makes learning easier (Gellens, 2000). In District Administrator, Jennifer Covino writes that:

"Children learn better and remember more when their studies are mixed with music and drama, experience, emotion and real-world context" (Covino, 2002. p. 25).

Gardiner et al. also show that students’ attitude and behavior can improve with arts training (1996).

We also now know through research that by playing a musical instrument, children can strengthen synapses between brain cells, activate the entire cerebral cortex, increase the size of the auditory cortex, increase the size of the anterior corpus callosum, increase the thickness of neural fibers connecting the two hemispheres of the brain, and increase motor skills. When music is exposed to young children, it could improve pitch discrimination, therefore improve phonemic awareness and, possibly, improve reading skills. Music has also been proven to improve spatial-temporal reasoning, a necessary skill for math and science.

There is even research to show that music helps alleviate stress and reduce pain. Ralph Spintge, a pain specialist and the executive director of the International Society for Music in Medicine, states in an interview with Donald Hodges (2000a) that "First, selected music significantly decreases the psychological and somatic stress response to acute stressors and acute pain in various medical settings such as surgery, dentistry, labor and childbirth, and intensive care. Second, specifically designed music significantly decreases chronic pain in patients suffering from syndromes such as musculoskeletal pain, low back pain, headache, and rheumatic pain." (p. 42)

He also states that the music can medicate pain because listening to music helps the brain release the pain-relieving endorphins. This information could easily be adapted to help children in school settings.

Music can be played in hallways during change of class to help reduce stress, in nurses’ offices to help children with headaches or other pain and be used during the school day to help students relax, reset, and focus.

In addition to the skills that children acquire while learning and practicing their instruments, there is also the factor of motivation. It could be that higher motivated students want to play instruments and do well in school. It could also be that the study of a musical instrument helps student become more motivated. Hallam (2005) believes that motivation and selfperceptions of ability are closely linked. If the study of and performance of musical instruments can lead to the positive perceptions of self, Hallam believes that it may increase the motivation to persevere.

These findings should be the first steps in revolutionizing early childhood development school operate. Susan Lang (1999) writes about one school in New York that is already starting to implement this research into its curriculum. In her paper, Lang (1999) quotes Elizabeth Stilwell, director of the Early Childhood Center at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY as saying:

"Early musical experiences can dramatically enhance a child's ability to acquire language, vocabulary, sensory motor skills, spatial reasoning, logic, and rhythmic skills" (para. 5).

At the Early Childhood Center, teacher directions arc sometimes recited as a chant with a drum. The center also developed a "Soundscape" where at recess, the students can play in a playground with musical instruments, and sound toys, a musical jungle gym. There is a giant marimba, xylophone, chimes, Tibetan bells, and drums. Each classroom at the center also has a set of authentic world instruments for each classroom. Children are also exposed to the recorded music that is played in every classroom many times during the day. Children are also expected to make new lyrics to old melodies.

By implementing music research in a pre-Kindergarten curriculum, we can possibly improve the academic achievement in children in primary school. By starting recorder lessons in the second grade, then by implementing a structured instrumental music program during fourth grade, we can possibly improve students' academic achievement through high school.