Effects of a Music Curriculum on the Pre-Reading and Writing Skills of Three- to Five-Year-Olds in an Inclusive Day Care Setting

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of a six-week music curriculum focused on pre-reading and writing skills among three- to five-year-old children in an inclusive day care setting. Music and language have much in common, which is beneficial in the classroom with typically developing children and children with developmental delays or disabilities for pre-reading and writing skills. The commonalities between music and language as well as the role of rhythm in language lend themselves well to using music as a teaching tool for language-related skills such as pre-reading, pre-writing, and overall literacy. This study was conducted at an inclusive day care center in the Preschool (ages 3-4; n = 8) and Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten (VPK; ages 4-5; n = 12) classes. The experimental group (n = 11) received reading- and writing-focused music therapy sessions twice a week for six weeks and the control group (n = 9) received regular instruction without music. Each group contained children from the Preschool and VPK classes. Data were collected for each student with three measures of pre-reading and writing skills: the Print Awareness for Words (PAW) measured word recognition, the Print Concepts Checklist (PCC) measured knowledge of book concepts, and the Developmental Writing and Language Skills Checklist (DWLS) measured pre-writing skills. This study utilized a matched experimental design with pre- and post-testing. Non-parametric statistical analyses were used to determine if there were differences between the experimental and control groups regarding the effects of the music curriculum on children's pre-reading and writing skills. While no statistically significant differences were found, the findings from the present study are discussed in relation to typical academic and literacy development as well as to the literature on music and literacy.