Playing musical instruments may improve reading
Sunday, February 21st, 2010
Playing musical instruments may improve reading
Learning to play a musical instrument could help to improve children’s reading and their ability to listen in noisy classrooms, according to new research.
“Our eyes and ears take in millions of bits of information every second and it is not possible for the brain to process all of that, so the sensory systems in our brains are primed to tune into regularities or patterns in the signals it receives.
“People who are musically trained are better at picking up these patterns because they learn to recognise notes and pitches within melodies and harmonies.
“The better you are at picking up these patterns in music, the better reader you are. This makes sense as letters and words on a page are really just patterns.”