A Song a Day: A Natural Way to Close the Achievement Gap Thousands of Minnesota children are not learning to read and compute well enough to succeed in school and be prepared for future employment (2008 Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments).  Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) continues to have possibly the largest achievement gap between white and non-white students in the nation and low achievers are dropping out of school.  In a national study, Minnesota’s 2005 overall graduation rate was 78% (ninth highest in the nation) but only 39% for black students—a 3.7% drop from the prior year and 16% lower than black students nationally.  Only 42% of Minnesota’s Hispanic students graduated compared to 58% nationwide (June 2008 Education Week).

This is a complex problem.  First, how do we raise achievement for all students, specifically in reading and math?  Then, how do we aid those children who are performing at low levels?  An obvious choice is to spend more time practicing reading and math.  However, increasing “skill and drill” often results in bored, less motivated students while taking time away from the practice of other important disciplines, such as making music.  This is a mistake.  Singing is a natural, primary source for learning.  Singing and playing singing games attracts and enlivens children, creates a positive classroom climate, helps children focus, and enables the brain neurologically for processing language and mathematics.     Approximately 3000 students whose teachers have taken MPS Alternative Teacher Professional Pay System courses: Affirming Parallel Concepts: Want to Teach Reading and Math? Try Singing! and A Song a Day are now singing down the halls, on the buses and at home.  By learning folksongs, the students are developing and strengthening neurological pathways that help them acquire language and logical thinking skills.  Besides posting higher achievement in math and reading, the teachers report that their students are happier, and that they are happier, too!  Singing and affirming parallel concepts among music, reading, and math enhances motivation, helps create a sense of community and teamwork, and may aid health and school attendance.   Recent data suggest that the act of making music actually causes changes in brain function, specifically in auditory development (Fujioka, Ross, Kakigi, Pantev, & Trainor, 2006), that appear to enable higher achievement in areas of phonological awareness and reading development (Anvari, Trainor, Woodside, & Levy, 2002 and Gromko, 2005), verbal memory (Ho, Cheung, & Chan, 2003), spatial processing (Costa-Giomi, E., 2000), and mathematics (Rauscher & LeMieux, 2003 and Cheek & Smith, 1999).  A correlation between music making and higher IQ has also been demonstrated (Shellenberg, 2004).  Olson’s research studies in MPS have demonstrated improved math and reading performance after connections were made between their singing-based music instruction and math and reading concepts (Olson, 2000; Olson, 2002; Olson, 2003).  Singing has also been shown to improve health by tremendously boosting Immunoglobulin A (IgA), an immune system protein that helps the body ward off disease (Beck and Cesario, 2000).

Ann Kay, Director of the Center for Lifelong Music Making and Elizabeth Olson, Ph.D, Park View elementary music teacher, began teaching Affirming Parallel Concepts: Want to Teach Reading and Math? Try Singing! in 2005, and A Song a Day in 2007.  The 120 teachers who have taken the courses are singing daily and affirming parallel concepts among reading, math and music.  The Try Singing! teachers have conducted action research studies about student achievement that have yielded many positive results.  The most dramatic of these is Lincoln Elementary where the three kindergartens outscored all of Minneapolis schools (40+) in letter sound acquisition in winter 2006, and posted the greatest improvement from fall ‘05 to winter ‘06.  During the 2006-‘07 school year, Lincoln kindergarters again outscored all MPS schools in both achievement and growth on the winter assessment.  A study at Wenonah Elementary yielded impressive improvement in third grade multiplication achievement for both genders and all ethnic groups when compared with a control group in the same school. Singing and moving transform the experience of being alive.  Engaging the mind, body and spirit creates happy, lively, high-achieving classroom communities where no child is left behind.      References  Anvari, S.H., Trainor, L.J, Woodside, J, & Levy, B.A. (2002). Relations among musical skills, phonological processing, and early reading ability in preschool children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 83 (20), 111-130. Beck, R. J., Cesario, T. C., Yousefi, A., & Enamoto, H. (2000). Choral singing, performance, perception, and immune system changes in salivary Immunoglobulin A and Cortisol. Music Perception, 18 (1), 87-106. Cheek, J.M. & Smith, L.R. (1999). Music training and mathematics achievement. Adolescence, 34, 759-61. Costa-Giomi, E. (1999). The effect of three years of piano instruction on children’s cognitive development. Journal of Research in Music Education, 47 (3), 198-212. EJ 604 142. Fujioka, T., Ross, B., Kakigi, R., Pantev, C., & Trainor, L. (2006). One year of musical training affects development of auditory cortical-evoked fields in young children. Brain, 129 (10), 2593-2608. Gromko, J.E., (2005). The effect of music instruction on phonemic awareness in beginning readers. Journal of Research in Music Education, 53 (3), 199-209. Ho, Y., Cheung, M., & Chan, A.S. (2003). Music training improves verbal but not visual memory; Cross-sectional and longitudinal explorations in children. Neuropsychology, 17 (3), 439-450. Olson, E. K. B. (2003). Affirming Parallel Concepts Among Reading, Mathematics, and Music Through Kodály Music Instruction. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Iowa. Dissertation Abstracts International, 64 (12), 4400A. Rauscher, F.H., & LeMieux, M.T. (2003). Piano, rhythm, and singing instruction improve different aspects of spatial-temporal reasoning in head start children. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, New York. Schellenberg, E. G. (2004). Music Lessons Enhance IQ. American Psychological Society, 15 (8), 511-514. Updated 08/08