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1 Jul 2005
Remarkable gains in early reading are being reported by a Glasgow east end nursery following specialist music tuition. The four-year-olds from Queen Mary Street in Bridgeton received lessons from a Kodaly music specialist, a rhythm-based approach developed by the Hungarian composer Zoltan Kodaly.
The research compared 32 children from Queen Mary Street nursery with a control group from a similar nursery. It found that those who had received the Kodaly tuition were 11.5 months ahead of their chronological age in literacy by the end of primary 1. Those who had not received any music education had a mean reading age of 4.6 months less than their chronological age.
Maureen Myant, senior educational psychologist in Glasgow, who conducted the study, believes that early exposure to this particular form of music tuition gave the children a better phonological awareness, which in turn gave them a better letter knowledge and reading ability.
Kodaly developed a teaching method for young children that, at its basic level, involves opportunities to say the words to songs in rhyme, clap the basic beat, step to the beat and clap the rhythm of the text. The concepts of high-low, loud-soft, fast-slow are also taught. The sessions lasted 20–30 minutes a week, with nursery staff doing daily singing sessions for 10–15 minutes.
(TES, 1 July 2005)
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