Music is processed at ALL levels of the brain – from heart rate, breathing and arousal to feelings and emotions to visual images and associations- it is all there.

Infants respond to music and imitate rhythm before they even develop speech.  “Nursery rhymes, songs and movement to music can all be used in the first five years to develop other skills in preparation for literacy.  Musical training also helps to develop left-hemispheric abilities such as sound discrimination, timing, numeric skills, and expressive language.  These abilities are essential for the understanding of phonics, and for developing short-term memory in the absence of visual cues.”  Music involves sequencing, and successful tonal memory actually bears a close relationship to reading age.

This could be promising for children with dyslexia.  Several interesting studies were mentioned on pages 79 to 80 of this chapter, including one Danish study that involved 1000 children who used a specific series of frequency-specific music tapes to improve the hearing discrimination and speed of processing.  At the end of one year, there was a 70 percent reduction in the signs of dyslexia in the group.  Continue reading →