Andrew Williams

Dr. Jan Rieman

English-1103

9 November 2010

Title Pending

Literacy is easily one of the most important skills any individual can possess. This has

always been and always will be true. But how does one improve their literacy skills, or begin

with what is commonly called a “jump start”? Music skills and music education have proven

themselves time and time again as invaluable contributors to advanced literacy skills. Musical

ability, musical training, or both lead to advanced literacy, which becomes evident either in early

ages or slowly over time.

Many who have studied this particular subject believe that this advancement stems from

learning music at an early age, and by extension the advancement becomes evident early on as

well. However, as said by Dr. Joseph Piro, Assistant Professor at Long Island University’s

Department of Curriculum and Instruction, such a correlation is incredibly difficult to prove

beyond a doubt (32). At the same time, convincing evidence that music training has an impact

on mathematical skills has led to the increase in evidence which points to music indeed having

quite an impact on reading and writing skills (Piro 32). In order to try to prove this, Dr. Piro and

other professors working in his department gathered 103 students from a large American public

school system who already were involved in regular music lessons along with a second group of

students who had little or no musical experience, and gave each group similar literacy tests in
order to compare literacy performance. The two groups were otherwise very similar, coming

from similar socio-economic backgrounds and showing demographic consistency (32).

These 103 students were part of a curriculum where from kindergarten through second

grade music instruction was mandatory. Developed by the Music and The Brain (MATB)

project, the curriculum taught music through “group keyboard instruction” (Piro 32).