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Examining the relationship between music training and early reading skills in children

Faculty Advisor

Date

2014

Keywords

musical perception, reading skills

Abstract (summary)

Past research has found evidence of a link between musical perception and performance on literacy related tests, such a reading tests and phonological awareness measures. Particular focus has been on the correlation between musical skills and phonemic understanding, with few studies examining reading specifically. Thus far in the literature, it is unclear if the relationship between perception and reading is dependent on specific perceptual abilities or is more domain general. Past investigation is also limited in the musical tasks that are available for children, and this had led to very mixed results as to why the relationship between music and reading might exist. The present study tested 120 6- to 10- year olds on a variety of musical perception measures and word reading tests to examine the association when controlling for general cognition and length of music training. Our results revealed that speed and tuning perceptual abilities were the only significant predictor of word reading scores, and that music training was uncorrelated with reading ability.

Publication Information

Notes

Item Type

Undergraduate Thesis

Language

English

Rights

All Rights Reserved