Three Ways Music Impacts Learning to Read, Plus a Bonus Benefit

Music plays an important role in every culture in the world. It has so many benefits for health, well being, and social interactions. Studies show that music and rhythm also have a positive effect on learning to read. When children learn to clap or tap to a rhythmical beat, their awareness of sounds and the rhythm of spoken language increases. Music uses signs and symbols to help musicians reproduce the sound, just like readers use punctuation for expression and meaning. Language has rhythm and learning to clap and tap to a beat helps early learners become strong readers. Music is a fun, effective, and engaging way to support learning to read. 

Rhythm, Beat, and Prediction

Research shows that language and reading development are closely tied to musical skills. Both activities involve rhythm, beat, and attention to patterns, timing, and accents. Our brains use the known structures of music and language to make predictions about what comes next. In music these predictions are based on beats and accents, while in language the predictions are based on sounds, meaning, and sentence structure.

Learning to clap or tap to a musical beat helps children become more aware of sounds and rhythm. This heightened awareness helps them unravel the cascading stream of sounds in spoken language into individual sounds and break longer words into syllables for easier decoding. The alphabet is an invented code for recording speech sounds. To be able to read, you have to learn the code. To use the code, you have to hear the individual sounds in words and be able to blend them together to read words.

Music provides practice with patterns, rhythm, and prediction. These skills help a child unravel the subtle variations in sounds needed to decode the complex structure of spoken and written language.        

Sounds and Expression 

The smallest units of music and language are sounds. Sounds can be isolated and they can be combined to create musical phrases or words to communicate meaning. Music and writing can also create emotional responses based on our interpretation of the sounds we are hearing or reading. Musicians and writers use sounds to draw the listener or reader in and to convey meaning.

To learn to read, children need to develop phonological awareness. Phonological awareness is the ability to manipulate sounds and words. This awareness helps them isolate, hear, and manipulate individual sounds in words.

One of the most important phonological awareness components is phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness is practiced orally and the focus is on letter sounds. It takes lots of practice to be able to isolate individual sounds in the fast flowing stream of spoken words. There are 44 sounds, also known as phonemes, in the English language and many of them have close pronunciations.

For example: The /s/ and /z/ in sap and zap. These words are closely related because they use the same mouth position to make the sounds, but /s/ is an unvoiced sound while /z/ is the voiced sound. To make the /z/ sound the vocal chords have to vibrate. You can feel this happening by placing your fingers on the front of your neck. Another way to hear and feel the voiced and voiceless difference is to cover your ears while saying the sounds.  

Voiced sounds are the singing sounds. Your vocal chords have to vibrate to make these sounds, and they can be held as long as you have breath. They include all the vowel sounds plus /b/ /d/ /g/ /j/ /l/ /m/ /n/ /ng/ /r/ /th/ /v/ /w/ /y/ /z/ /zh/. 

Phonological awareness also helps your child analyze and manipulate sounds in words based on rhyming patterns and syllables. Children love to make rhymes, often making up their own words to continue the rhyming patterns. Reading poems, nursery rhymes, and books with rhyming patterns is a fun way to introduce rhyming. During shared reading, pause before the rhyming words and encourage your child to finish the sentence. You can also play rhyming games by choosing a rime such as -oat and see how many rhyming words you and your child can make. For example: boat, coat, dote, float, goat, moat, note, oat, quote, rote, throat, tote, vote, wrote.     

Babies and young children develop awareness of sounds early in life as they listen to speech and music. Singing and reading to babies exposes them to the sounds and rhythms that help them learn to talk and read. When children move and clap to music and play rhyming and word games, they are practicing skills that will help them learn to read. Music is a fun and motivating way to play with sounds and language. 

If you are wondering why your child babbles, talks, hums, sings, and repeats nonsense sounds all day long, it’s because it takes a lot of practice to articulate each of the unique phonemes needed to speak clearly. A complex coordination of the lungs, vocal box, and mouth parts is required to produce and manipulate speech sounds. Some sounds such as /b/ /d/ /h/ /m/ /n/ /p/ /w/ are easier to reproduce and will be learned around 2 years of age, but others such as /th/ /th/ /r/ or /zh/ may take until your child is 5 or 6 years old to learn. Speaking clearly and precisely is a complicated process that requires lots of modeling, patience, and practice.  

Music also provides practice with skills that are needed for reading expression and fluency. Music uses changes in speed, pitch, and volume to create interest and convey meaning. These changes are also used when reading text to create meaning and engage listeners.

Reading requires the use of sight and hearing to connect written symbols to sounds and understand what they mean when they are combined into words. Music also requires sight and hearing to understand and reproduce the intentions of the composer. To learn to read, a child has to be able to isolate and manipulate individual sounds. Music provides practice in hearing, manipulating, and expressing sounds. 

Signs and Symbols

Music and written language are similar in how they are recorded and read. Both contain symbols and visual patterns that are read from left to right and top to bottom of the page. The user also has to understand the connection between the symbols and the sounds they represent to use them to make music or to read words.

Symbols are used in music to tell the musician how to play the notes and phrases. This is similar to how punctuation is used in writing to help the reader show expression and get meaning from what they read. When you read with your child, draw attention to punctuation marks such as commas, periods, question marks, and exclamation marks. Show them how you use these symbols to help you read with phrasing and expression. Select a page or paragraph and play a Search and Find game to count how many periods are in that section. Repeat this activity with other punctuation marks. You can also show them a music page and talk about the notes and symbols used to write down the tune to a favorite song.    

Both music and written language rely on symbols that help the user make meaning from what is written down. These symbols were created to record sound and make it easy for others to reproduce the same sounds. Learning to read music is similar to learning to read written language. Both rely on signs and symbols that tell the user how to replicate the sounds.

How to Make Music a Part of Everyday Life

Here are some practical ways to provide musical experiences for your child that will have a beneficial effect on learning to read.

• Use your vocal chords to sing and hum
• Use your body and props such as wands, scarves, or ribbons to move and dance to music
• Whistle or make other interesting sounds with your mouth 
• Make repetitive sounds such as the hum of a motor, a back-up beeper, screeching brakes, or siren while playing with toy vehicles
• Use your body to make percussion sounds: Clap your hands, pat your thighs, snap your fingers, tap your toes, and stomp your feet
• Use household items such as bowls, pots, wooden blocks and spoons to make rhythmic sounds
• Provide simple instruments such as rattles, shakers, drums, tambourines, maracas, xylophone, or a glockenspiel
• Encourage your child to play with sounds, create rhymes, and make up their own songs
• Find or create opportunities with other parents for your child to experience musical and reading activities with other children and adults

Bonus Benefit: Patience, Perseverance, and a Growth Mindset

Learning to read music, sing, or play a musical instrument requires lots of practice. This is also true for learning to read. Music and reading support a positive growth mindset and practice in not giving up when the task becomes harder. Music and reading are often shared experiences that build strong relationships and provide practice with social skills. Reading and music evoke emotions and take us to magical places that fuel imaginations and spark creativity. Music and reading provide opportunities for social interaction and help your child build self confidence in their personal abilities. Both activities should be a daily part of everyday life. 

Music and Reading: A Great Partnership

Research shows that music and rhythm have a positive effect on reading. Learning to clap or tap to a rhythmical beat increases awareness of sounds and the rhythm in spoken language. The signs and symbols that help musicians reproduce notes and sounds are similar to punctuation that supports expression and meaning. Learning to clap and tap, read music, and play an instrument is a wonderful way for early learners to enhance reading skills while building self confidence and supporting social interactions.

Pediatric Associations around the world strongly advocate that daily music and reading activities are vital components of early literacy and overall brain development. CPS AAP 

We encourage you to make music and reading a daily part of your child’s life. Learning to read is easy using the playful games in our Alphabites Game Pack. Grab yours here today. Feel free to contact us with questions or support needed on the magical learning to read journey for you and your child.   

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