PIANO BOOSTS STUDENT MATH ACHIEVEMENT
Taking piano lessons and using math puzzle software significantly improves math skills of elementary school children.
Second-grade students were given four months of piano keyboard training, as well as time using newly designed math software. The group scored over 27% higher on proportional math and fractions tests than children who used only the math software.
Music involves ratios, fractions, proportions and thinking in space and time. The software - called Spatial-Temporal Animation Reasoning (STAR) - allows children to solve geometric and math puzzles that boost their ability to manipulate shapes in their minds.
The findings are significant because a grasp of proportional math and fractions is a prerequisite to math at higher levels, and children who do not master these areas of math cannot understand more advanced math critical to high-tech fields.
Reference: Neurological Research March, 1999
Nearly 100%
of past winners in the prestigious Siemens Westinghouse Competition in Math, Science and Technology (for high school students) play one or more musical instruments. This led the Siemens Foundation to host a recital at Carnegie Hall in 2004, featuring some of these young people, after which a panel of experts debated the nature of the apparent science/music link. –The Midland Chemist (American Chemical Society) Vol. 42, No.1, Feb. 2005
Taking piano lessons and using math puzzle software significantly improves math skills of elementary school children.
Second-grade students were given four months of piano keyboard training, as well as time using newly designed math software. The group scored over 27% higher on proportional math and fractions tests than children who used only the math software.
Music involves ratios, fractions, proportions and thinking in space and time. The software - called Spatial-Temporal Animation Reasoning (STAR) - allows children to solve geometric and math puzzles that boost their ability to manipulate shapes in their minds.
The findings are significant because a grasp of proportional math and fractions is a prerequisite to math at higher levels, and children who do not master these areas of math cannot understand more advanced math critical to high-tech fields.
Reference: Neurological Research March, 1999
Nearly 100%
of past winners in the prestigious Siemens Westinghouse Competition in Math, Science and Technology (for high school students) play one or more musical instruments. This led the Siemens Foundation to host a recital at Carnegie Hall in 2004, featuring some of these young people, after which a panel of experts debated the nature of the apparent science/music link. –The Midland Chemist (American Chemical Society) Vol. 42, No.1, Feb. 2005