Music Training and Reading Readiness

Abstract

several reports have noted significant associations among phonological awareness, early reading skills, and music perception skills in young children. We examined whether music processing skills differentially predicted reading performance in a broad age range of 69 children with and without formal music training. Pitch perception was correlated with phonological awareness, a finding consistent with the hypothesis that basic auditory processing skills underlie the association between music and reading abilities. Nevertheless, the correlation between music skills and reading skills was affected by the presence of formal music training: pitch discrimination predicted reading ability only in children without formal music training. Studies examining the association between music perception and reading (and perhaps other cognitive domains as well) should not ignore the factor of music training.