Letter from Betty, January 2014

Hello,

Happy New Year! I hope your 2014 is off to a great start.

We are proud of our students for their academic success as well as the successes they have in their nonacademic activities. Many of them spend hours on the athletic field, others work tirelessly to perform in school plays, and some play musical instruments in the school band or orchestra. We appreciate the dedication our students have for these activities, and we are proud of their accomplishments. This month's feature article, "Music and Learning," describes the surprising educational benefits of playing a musical instrument, including heightened memory skills, mathematics achievements, and reading ability.

Betty

Betty Bodenweiser
Director
Foundation for Learning

SAT/ACT Test Schedules

Mark your calendars! Here are the latest SAT, ACT, and SSAT test dates.

Music and Learning

Is your child involved in music studies? Does your child play an instrument? Is listening to music a part of your family activities?



For decades, research has been done on the effects that music has on a person in the areas of education, physical well-being, and stress relief. Back in the 1950s, a theory called the "Mozart effect" became popular, and parents began playing Mozart’s beautiful compositions, as well as other classical pieces, because people began to understand that music enhances a child’s life and development, including the area of academic performance.

An interesting study of children between the ages of 4-6 was published in 2006 by researchers at McMasters University. This group found that the kids that received musical instruction charted higher in memory skills, mathematics, and reading ability.

Older kids have been studied as well. The National Association for Music Educators focused on 16-18 year olds and found that those who had music built into their lives scored, on average, 56 points higher on verbal and 39 points higher on math portions of their SATs.



Academic investigators at McGill University studied how the body can be affected by listening to music. They found that dopamine is released in the brain at a higher rate when a person is exposed to music, helping to relieve stress and even bringing about positive effects for people dealing with anxiety and depression. They concluded that music helps people focus and improves both short-term and long-term memory.

Music can positively affect mood, evoke emotions, and boost energy. Additionally, music helps people to retain information, strengthens language skills, and enhances overall learning.

We know that there are different types of learners. For people who are aural learners, sound is the most effective way to understand the world and to gather information. Mnemonic techniques will help most people learn and memorize information, setting something to music in order to retain facts and trigger the memory at a later date. Remember how you learned your ABCs?



Researchers at Northwestern University gathered data from around the world linking musical training and the effects of music to all kinds of skills, including those areas mentioned above. Neuroplasticity is what neurologists call the physical changes the brain undergoes, the ability to adapt and make neural connections when a person is exposed to music and the nervous system is affected. Those neural connections are important to learning.

In the study of music, the student is reading, memorizing, visualizing, focusing on timing, understanding melodies and harmonies, and coordinating with other performers. The musician’s brain weaves a complex relationship between both sensory and cognitive activities. In their published studies, the researchers at Northwestern find that children who are trained in the musical arts are more acutely aware of pitch changes in speech, have better vocabulary and communication skills, and even better reading ability than kids that aren’t exposed to music and musical training.



Music helps provide brain fitness, shapes development, reinforces self-discipline, focus, listening, coordination, beat, rhythms, visualization, pronunciation, language (for reading music is indeed reading another language), and spills over to all areas of academic achievement. Music helps relieve stress and anxiety, supports memory skills, exposes us to different cultures, histories, and so many other aspects of the world around us. So expose your child to music in the home, take in concerts featuring different types of music, sing with your kids, encourage your child to study music either in school or privately outside of class. Music is as important to your child’s development and education as math or science, so support your local music scene and support music programs in our schools.

The Puzzler: Unusual Musical Instruments

Match each of the six rare and unusual musical instruments in the photos to its name on the list below. Extra credit: Name the famous American inventor in the photo at upper left.


 

1. Hurdy Gurdy
2. Koto 
3. Moog Synthesizer
4. Glass Armonica
5. Harmonium
6. Viol de Gamba

Answer next month!

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LAST ISSUE'S PUZZLER: An Animated Christmas, with ANSWER
 

Match each of the four images below to a quote from the list. Extra credit: Name the character who spoke the quoted line!

1. “Say, by the way, can you play ‘Jingle Bells?’” 
2. “Santie Claus, why? Why are you taking our Christmas tree? Why?” 
3. “Hey Buddy, wanna pick some snowberries?”
4. “Someday I’d like to be…a dentist.” 

Do you know who said what?

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ANSWERS: 

1. “Say, by the way, can you play ‘Jingle Bells?’” ....D: Lucy van Pelt from "A Charlie Brown Christmas"
2. “Santie Claus, why? Why are you taking our Christmas tree? Why?” ...A: Cindy Lou Who from "How the Grinch Stole Christmas"
3. “Hey Buddy, wanna pick some snowberries?” ...B: Arctic Puffin from "Elf"
4. “Someday I’d like to be…a dentist.” ...C: Hermie from "Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer"