This study is important because it is trying to get to the bottom of the neural development of the auditory and motor networks. It is, however, building on the research from musically trained children and reading. The study looked to test children before they had music learning or learned how to read. The researchers took […]

This article is packed with fantastic research from the MARCS Institute in Sydney, Australia. It is vital to study the first developmental steps in all areas of life, but possibly it is most important with complex language, the skill that is specific to humans and is the basis of connecting, communicating and understanding each other. […]

This study has compared musical training with the visual aspect of reading languages. The most interesting thing about the study design is that they have compared Chinese language reading and English language reading. The main visible difference between these two types of language reading is that English is read sequentially from left to right whereas […]

Music and language: two sides of the human communication coin … This is the start of a brilliant quote from the minds of Prof Nina Kraus and Dr Jessica Slater. “… while language is effective for semantically precise communication, the great strength of music lies in its facilitation of social bonding and shared emotion. Both […]

“A common argument against daily music education is that it takes time away from teaching fundamentals such as reading and math. But evidence shows that music training actually improves children’s reading and math skills, suggesting that it can pay dividends in more traditional academic domains” A great article from Dr Nina Kraus, one of the […]

Music & Literacy Education Is Money Well Spent “It’s about how we spend the money”. That was the catch cry of a number of politicians this week when the preliminary results from NAPLAN were released. Senator Birmingham was referring to the disappointing return on their investment in education. So Senator, what are we spending the […]