Music Lessons Help Improve Math Skills

New Studies Support Original Findings That
Music Lessons Help Improve Math Skills

New research continues to show music lessons, especially piano
lessons, can help elementary school students score higher on

math tests.

In a 1999 report, Dr. Gordon Shaw of the University of California,

Irvine studied three groups of second graders. One group received

piano lessons and used a special mathematics computer program.

Another group used the mathematics program and also received

English training. A third group received only standard classroom

instruction.

After four months of this training, the second-grade students in the

group that received piano lessons and used the math computer

program scored 15 percent to 41 percent higher on tests of ratios

and fractions than the students in the other two groups.

In a 2000 report, Dr. Shaw studied the math test scores of a group

of second graders from inner-city Los Angeles who were given

piano lessons twice a week for a year. Shaw compared the test

scores of this group to the scores of elementary school students in

affluent Orange County who did not receive piano lessons.

The second graders from Los Angeles scored as well as fourth

graders from Orange County. Half of the second graders in the

study scored as well as fifth-grade students in Orange County.

The study of music and improvement in math seem to be closely

connected. These new studies add credibility to the results of 1997

research, when a specific link between music and math was first

reported.

Source:
Sharon Begley, "Music On the Mind," Newsweek, July 24, 2000.