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The Relationship Between Musical Ability and Literacy Skills

Article  in  Journal of Research in Reading · November 2005

DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9817.1994.tb00057.x

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Journal oj Research in Reading (1994), 17(2), 99-107

The relationship between musical

ability and literacy skills
Sheila Douglas and Peter Willatts

Auchterderran Staff Development and Resources Centre

and University of Dundee

ABSTRACT
Research has shown that a relationship exists between phonological awareness and
literary skills. It has been suggested that a structured programme of musical
activities can be used to help children develop a multi-sensory awareness and
response to sounds. The relationship between musical ability and literacy skills was
examined in a study that showed an association between rhythmic ability and
reading. A further pilot intervention study showed that training in musical skills is a
valuable additional strategy for assisting children with reading difficulties.

RESUME
Les relations entre competences en musique eten lecture..ecriture

De nombreux chercheurs ont montre qu'it y a une relation entre conscience phono-
logique et competences en lecture-ecriture et queies mauvais lecteurs ont des diffi-
cuites a separer les mots en fonction de leurs composantes sonores (Bryant et al.,
1990; Treiman, 1985). Des recherches s'interessent au fait que de nombreux.enfants
intelligents ayant souffert d'une perte auditive temporaire au cours de leur petite
enfance rencontrent des problemes en lecture et en ecriture,et certains pensent
qu'un programme structure d'activites musicales pourrait compenser ces difficultes
initiales (Wisbey, 1980).
Miles et Miles (1990) ont attire l'attention sur les recherches relatives a la dyslexie
et a la musique. Des resultats de differents types ont etc rcunis dans une brochure de
Smith (1988) faisant la liste de certaines difficultes que rencontrent les dyslexiques
dans leur rapports avec la musique. Cette liste contient 'se souvenir d'une phrase
melodique ou rythmique et la reproduire en chantant ou en frappant des mains'
(Miles et Miles, 1990, p. 49). Ceci suggere un lien entreune mauvaise perception du
rythme et de la hauteur et des problemes de lecture.
ISSN 0141-0423 © United Kingdom Reading Association 1994. Published by Blackwell Publishers,
108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 lJF, UK and 238 Main Street, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
100 DOUGLAS AND WllLATTS

L'etude presentee ici a ete entreprise pour explorer l'eventualite d'un lien entre 1
competences en musique et en lecture-ecriture. Un effectif de 78 enfants, iges de 7 a d
8 ans, a passe un test de vocabulaire (British Picture Vocabulary Scale), les tests de e:
lecture et ecriture de Schonell, et un test de conscience auditive construit speciale- p
ment pour evaluer les competences de rythme et de hauteur. Les resultats ont fait cl
apparai'tre une correlation significative entre les competences rythmiques et la CI
lecture (.306), qui est demeuree quand l'influence du vocabulaire a ete partieUement
exclue de la correlation.
Springer et Deutsch (1984) ont suggere que Ie traitement du rythme est sous Ie
contrOie de l'hemisphere gauche du cerveau, tandis que I'hemisphere droit contrOie
Ie traitement des jugements melodiques et la hauteur. II est possible que Ie rythme et
la lecture soient correles parce que les mecanismes qui controlent Ie langage sont
localises egalement dans I'hemisphere gauche (Sloboda, 1985).
Wisbey (1980) a mis I'accent sur l'importance de la hauteur dans Ie developpement VI
des competences en lecture-ecriture,. ce qui semble en contradiction avec les resultats VI
de notre etude. On peut trouver une explication de cette contradiction dans une
experience de Bever et Chiarello (1974) qui a montre que des musiciens experimentes
utilisent une approche analytique dans Ie traitement de la musique, tan dis que des
non musiciens adoptent une approche holistique. Ceci con forte la position presentee
initialement par Hughlings-Jackson (voir Taylor, 1932) qui veut que Ie traitement
analytique soit specifique de l'hemisphere gauche et Ie traitement holistique de
I'hemisphere droit. Les enfants ayant participe a notre etude etaient relativement
inexperimentes sur Ie plan musical et n'avaient pas ete soumis a un programme
rigoureux d'activites musicales du type de celui de Wisbey (1980). Par consequent,
Ies traitements de la hauteur et du langage peuvent avoir ete effectues par des
hemispheres differents, et ceci aurait diminue la correlation.
Les enfants deja identifies comme ayant des difficultes en lecture pourraient donc
tirer parti d'un programme structure d'activites musicales. Savoir traiter de maniere
analytique des aspects melodiques aussi bien que rythmiques de la musique peut
aider a stimuler des reponses semblables en matiere de langage. Une etude pilote a
ete conduite avec deux groupes d'enfants apparies selon leurs competences en debut
d'apprentissage de la lecture. On a vu chaque groupe une fois par semaine, I'un a
participe a des activites musicales (groupe d'intervention), et l'autre Ii des dis-
cussions (groupe contrOle). Au bout de six mois, les resultats en lecture du groupe
d'intervention musicale ont depasse significativement ceux du groupe de discussion.
Le fait que les compeiences sonores et de lecture soient Uees et qu'une courte
intervention musicale conduise a une augmentation significative des resultats en
lecture suggere que l'entrainement des competences en musique est une strategie
supplementaire pour aider les enfants qui ont des difficultes en lecture.

INTRODUCTION

The Relationship between Aural Skills and Reading

Children's awareness of speech sounds, or 'phonological awareness' as it is often
called, appears to play an important role in learning to read (Bryant et al.. 1990;

© United Kingdom Reading Association 1994

MUSICAL ABILITY AND LITERACY 101

Treiman, 1985). Bryant and Bradley (1985) have shown that backward readers have
difficulty in breaking up words into their component sounds. They argue that there
exists a continuum stretching from children who are particularly insensitive to such
phonological segmentation through to those who find no difficulty. Moreover, they
clail!l that their research shows that backward readers can be moved up this
continuum.
Bradley and Bryant (1983) conducted a study involving four- and five-year-olds to
measure phonemic awareness (awareness of individual sounds) in children who had
not begun formal reading instruction. For this study they chose the 'oddity task' in
which children were asked to identify which word was different in a set of three or
four spoken words. In each set the first, middle, or final sound in one of the words
was different from the rest (e.g. pig, hit, pin; or give, pat, girl, get).
Reading ability was assessed three years later and a highly significant relationship
was found with the children's earlier achievement in the oddity task. Children who
were better at identifying the sound which was the odd one out had higher reading
scores.
Bradley and Bryant pointed out that this relation did not establish that differences
in phonemic awareness caused the differences in reading achievement. Because some
other factor may have influenced the scores both in the oddity task and reading
assessments, they carried out a subsequent instruction study in an attempt to show
that phonemic awareness leads to improved reading skills.
They selected 65 of the children who had been most unsuccessful on the oddity
task and divided them into four groups, giving each group 40 individual tutoring
sessions. The children in the first two groups were shown how to compare the first,
middle and final sounds of words. In addition, the children in the second group were
taught how these sounds corresponded to alphabetic letters. The children in the third
group were shown how to arrange words in semantic categories (e.g. hen and pig are
farm animals). The fourth group had no special training.
When the children were tested after the training period, the first group, who had
only been taught phonemic awareness, scored better on a reading assessment than
either the group trained in semantic categories or the group with no training,
although the differences were not statistically significant. In contrast, the reading
scores of the group trained in phonemic awareness and letter/sound correspon-
dences were considerably higher than all the other groups. Bradley and Bryant's
experiment suggests that the ability to link letter knowledge and phonemic aware-
ness is likely to be important in reading.
In an earlier study, Bradley (1981) attempted to show that a multi-sensory
approach to teaching poor readers about written words was more successful than
other methods. The method used by Bradley was similar to one which was pioneered
by Gillingham and Stillman (1956), known as 'Simultaneous Oral Spelling'.
The children taking part in the study were taught by three different methods to
read twelve words. The first method was Bradley's (1981) version of 'Simultaneous
Oral Spelling' which involved three major elements - seeing the word, spelling out
the letters and writing movements. The second method did not include spelling out
the letters, and the third method omitted the writing element.
After four weeks the backward readers were considerably more successful at
spelling the words taught by 'Simultaneous Oral Spelling' than by the other two

© United Kingdom Reading Association 1994

102 DOUGLAS AND WILLATIS

methods. Bryant and Bradley (985) believed that this multi-sensory approach was
successful because it encouraged poor readers to make connections between reading
and spelling.
Bryant and Bradley's assertion that ability to differentiate sounds is a crucial
factor in learning to read successfully is supported by Wisbey (1980) who has
suggested that working with sounds through ml,lsic may also be related to success in
reading. Wisbey proposed that many intelligent children fail to become literate
because of undetected hearing problems during infancy or early childhood.
According to Wisbey, many children with early hearing problems either outgrow
the symptoms or have them treated, so that when tested at a later date, no hearing
defect is apparent. As a result, the consequences of the early hearing problems are
left untreated.
Whereas Bradley (1981) found that a programme involving a multi-sensory
approach to reading and spelling was beneficial in helping backward readers to
improve their literacy skills, Wisbey (1980) proposed that reading difficulties could
be prevented by using musical activities to help children develop a multi-sensory
awareness and response to sounds.
A study by MacLean et at. (1987) goes some way towards reinforcing Wisbey's
(1980) suggestion that an early involvement in musical activities can prove beneficial
in preventing problems with later literacy skills. MacLean et al. found that knowl-
edge of nursery rhymes was strongly related to phonological skills.
The present study was undertaken to explore this possible link between musical
ability and literacy skills, but before proceeding further, two questions must be
answered - what is musical ability and how can it be measured?
Some researchers (e.g. Mursell and Glenn, 1966) believe that muscial ability can
be defined as a single, if somewhat complex, ability, whereas Seashore (1938) prefers
the notion that musical ability can be broken up into separate abilities such as pitch
discrimination, rhythm, timbre, etc. As Lowery (1952, p. 18) says, 'Music ... is a
subjective phenomenon, depending on the activity of the listener's mind . . . it only
begins when the heard sounds are recognised as possessing a meaningful relation to
each other.'
Sounds have a 'meaningful relation' to each other in terms of pitch and rhythm.
Timbre and dynamics may enhance the performance, but a melody can be recog-
nised however loudly it is played (Bentley, 1966). Consequently, for the purpose
of this study, it was decided to concentrate on pitch and rhythm as indicators of
musical ability.
Miles and Miles (1990) draw attention to the research concerned with dyslexia and
music. Evidence from a variety of sources has been compiled in a booklet by Smith
(1988) listing some of the difficulties encountered by dyslexics when dealing with
music. It is interesting to note that the list includes 'remembering a melodic or rhyth-
mic phrase and singing or clapping it back' (Miles and Miles, 1990, p. 49). This
suggests a link between poor rhythm and pitch perception and reading problems.
The Music Department of Fife Region produced an aural awareness test for
Primary Four children (i.e. in their eighth and ninth year of age) based on a text
devised by Bentley (1966), but shorter and less complicated. This test was chosen for
the study because it was already available on tape and was designed for the age
group of subjects who were to take part in the study.

© United Kingdom Reading Association 1994

MUSICAL ABILITY AND LITERACY 103

METHOD

Subjects
A total of 78 children, 40 girls and 38 boys, ranging in age from 7:5 to 8:9 with an
overall mean age of 8 years, participated in the study. The only basis for selection
was that they were in their fourth year at primary school. The two schools from
which the children were drawn were situated in the same area of a large town in
central Fife, were of similar size, and attracted pupils from a wide variety of social
backgrounds.

Materials

British Picture Vocabulary Scale - Short Form

The short form of the British Picture Vocabulary Scale (BPVS) was used to provide
an independent measure of verbal ability.

Primary 4 Aural Awareness Test - Fife Regional Council Music Department

The first part of the test focused on pitch, the second on rhythm. To ensure
uniformity of presentation, a tape recorder was used to administer the test. The
pitch discrimination test was preceded by practice items explaining the terms
'higher', 'lower' and 'the same'. Ten pairs of pitched sounds were sung by a female
voice, and the second of each pair of sounds had to be identified as higher or lower
than the first sound, or the same as the first sound.
The rhythmic test was preceded by practice items explaining the terms 'the same'
and 'different'. The test comprised ten pairs of rhythmic patterns played on a wood-
block which had to be idedtified as 'the same' or 'different'.

Schonell Reading and Spelling Tests

The Schonell Reading and Spelling Tests were administered to measure subjects'
ability at word recognition and attainment at spelling.

The tests were given in the following order to each child: (1) BPVS; (2) Aural Aware-
ness Test; (3) Schonell Reading Test; (4) Schonell Spelling Test.

RESULTS

Table 1 shows the correlations between the different measures used in the study.
Vocabulary showed a significant correlation with each of the other measures. Pitch
was also significantly related to the other measures, but less strongly, while rhythm
showed highly significant correlations with both reading and spelling. The strongest
relationship of all the measures was between reading and spelling.

© United Kingdom Reading Association 1994

104 DOUGLAS AND WILLATIS

Table I. Correlations between Scores for Aural Measures and

Vocabulary. Reading. and Spelling

Vocabulary Pitch Rhythm Reading

Pitch .429**"
Rhythm .321"" .317**
Reading .482.. • .. .252" .409· ....
Spelling .428··· .263* .347 .. •• .926""

• p<.OS; ... p<.02; .... p<.OO2

Preliminary analyses indicated that reading and spelling abilities correlated sig-
nificantly with the aural measures, suggesting that these abilities may be linked.
However, the fact that all of these measures also correlated significantly with
vocabulary suggests that general intellectual ability may have been responsible for
these correlations. Thus, children with a higher intellectual ability may have per-
formed better on both the reading and aural assessments. Table 2 shows the cor-
relations between reading and spelling and the aural measures with vocabulary
partialled out.

Table 2. Correlations between Scores for Aural Measures

and Reading and Spelling. with Vocabulary Partialled Out

Reading Spelling

Pitch .057 .096

Rhythm .306·· .245*
Aural (combined) .233" .213

.. p<.05; •• p<.02

With vocabulary partialled out, reading and spelling no longer showed a signifi-
cant relationship to pitch, whereas rhythm remained significantly correlated with
both of these measures. The combined aural measures (pitch and rhythm) correlated
significantly with reading, but not with spelling. The weakness of the relationship
between scores for the combined aural measure and reading and spelling can be
attributed to the influence of pitch. It can be concluded from these analyses that a
link does exist between rhythm and reading, though the extent of the relation is
fairly small.

DISCUSSION

The results showed that rhythm was significantly related to reading ability and. to a
lesser degree, spelling ability. The first set of analyses (Table 1) also revealed that
pitch was significantly related to reading and spelling, but when vocabulary was
partialled out, this relationship disappeared (Table 2).
© United Kingdom Reading Association 1994
MUSICAL ABILITY AND LITERACY 105

Wisbey (1980) has stressed the importance of pitch training as a vital feature in
the development of good literacy skills, yet the results of the study showed no
significant relationship between pitch and reading or spelling, once vocabulary was
partialled out.
Bentley (1966) states that sounds have a 'meaningful relation' to each other in
terms of pitch and rhythm, but this does not mean that pitch and rhythm are of
necessity part of the same process. Springer and Deutsch (1984) have suggested that
rhythmic processing is controlled by the left hemisphere of the brain, while the right
hemisphere controls melodic judgements. A possible explanation for the relation-
ship between rhythm and reading could be that they are processed by the same area
of the left hemisphere.
Much of Wisbey's (1980) research into the role of musical training in the develop-
ment of good literacy skills centres on the acquisition of accurate pitch discrimi-
nation, which seems to conflict with the findings of the present study. Code (1987)
offers an explanation for this apparent conflict, describing an experiment by Bever
and Chiarello (1974) in which non-musicians showed a better memory for melodies
when they were presented to the left ear, indicating a right hemisphere advantage.
Musicians on the other hand, who were currently playing an instrument or singing,
showed a better memory for melodies when they were presented to the right ear,
indicating a left hemisphere advantage.
Bever and Chiarello (1974) explain these results by suggesting that trained
musicians use an analytic approach in processing music, while non-musicians adopt
a holistic approach, viewing music as a total entity rather than something to be
broken down into its component parts. They support the widely held view, which
was first proposed by Hughlings Jackson (see Taylor, 1932), that analytic processing
is specific to the left hemisphere and holistic processing to the right hemisphere.
Highly trained musicians who have suffered left hemisphere brain damage
provide yet more evidence that right hemisphere dominance in music is not complete
(Springer and Deutsch, 1984). They describe how Ravel suffered a left hemisphere
stroke, and although he was still able to recognise melodies and detect mistakes in
musical performances, he suffered a substantial loss in his ability to identify written
music and was no longer able to play the piano or compose.
The children participating in the study were relatively inexperienced musically and
would not have been exposed to a rigorous programme of musical activities such as
was proposed by Wisbey (1980), which might have had some influence on how they
processed the pitch test.
While it is not being suggested that training in music is essential for good literacy
skills, it does seem plausible to propose that children who have already been ident-
ified as having difficulty with reading might benefit from a structured programme of
musical activities, thus developing an analytic approach like Bever and Chiarello's
(1974) trained musicians. The ability to process melodic as well as rhythmic aspects
of music analytically may help to stimulate a similar response to language.
Psychologists are frequently accused of being so involved with microscopic areas
of research that they become totally unconcerned with putting theory into practice
(Sloboda, 1985). Bryant and Bradley (1985) have shown that it is possible to com-
bine the knowledge acquired through research with practical teaching in order to
reach a positive outcome, and Wisbey (1980) has proposed that a compensatory
programme of specific musical activities can be used to prevent the onset of reading
© United Kingdom Reading Association 1994
106 DOUGLAS AND WILLATIS

difficulties in children who have suffered from early hearing problems. It was
therefore decided that a pilot study should be conducted to demonstrate the
practical application of the relation between aural ability and reading.

PILOT INTERVENTION STUDY

The school in which the pilot intervention study took place was selected in response
to interest shown by the head teacher and the learning support teacher. Because the
school has a relatively small population, not many of the children had been ident-
ified as having reading difficulties. Nevertheless, with the assistance of the learning
support teacher, six boys and six girls whom it was thought might benefit from extra
help were chosen to take part in the study. Their ages ranged from 8:1 to 10:8 with
an overall mean of 8:9. Half the subjects were assigned to the intervention group
and half to the control group, and the groups were matched for reading ability on an
initial test.
At the outset, the children's reading ability was tested with the Schonell test. It
was decided that the pilot study would continue for six months to allow sufficient
time for a music programme to influence reading. The children's progress in reading
would be measured at the end of that period.
The content of the musical programme was designed to develop the children's
auditory, visual and motor skills. The musical instruments were the children's own
voices and a selection of tuned and untuned percussion. During each session, the
children were introduced to a variety of 'games' incorporating rhythmic and pitch
activities, with a frequent change of emphasis from auditory to visual processes as
well as a combination of both. In preparing each week's programme, particular
emphasis was placed on constantly adapting ideas to ensure that the children's
interest was maintained.
The children in the control group participated in non-musical activities which
were designed to develop all aspects of discussion skills (e.g. descriptive, imagin-
ative, comparative). They were encouraged to work together in groups, and to share
ideas about whatever topic was under discussion. They were also given opportunities
to offer individual opinions about issues which arose. As with the music group,
great care was taken to ensure that the sessions varied in style and content in order to
sustain the children's interest. After six months reading ability was again tested for
all children.

RESULTS

Reading scores on the initial and final tests are shown in Table 3. The scores were
examined with analysis of variance. The difference in reading scores between the
groups was not significant, but the scores on the final test were significantly higher
than scores on the initial test, F(1, 10) = 7.0, p < .05. There was also a significant
interaction between the groups and the time of testing, F(1 ,10) =7.0, P < .05. Read-
ing scores for the intervention group increased from the initial to the final test, but
scores for the control group did not change.
The findings of this investigation indicate that there is a link between musical
ability and reading ability, and the pilot intervention study suggests that training in
© United Kingdom Reading Association 1994
 MUSICAL ABILITY AND LITERACY 107

Table 3. Mean Reading Scores on the Initial and Final

Tests for the Intervention and Control Groups

Musical Intervention Control

Initial Final Initial Final

95.17 99.83 96.67 96.67

music skills led to an improvement. Although this improvement is fairly small

(about five points on the reading scale), it may be that a musical intervention in
combination with other types of intervention may be even more effective than focus-
ing on one single area.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The authors would like to thank the children and staff from Primary Schools in Fife .
for their participation in the study. A fuller account of the research reported in this
article is available as an unpublished M.Ed. dissertation by the first author from
Dundee University. 1992.

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Address for Correspondence: SHEILA DOUGLAS. 15 Greenside Court, St. Andrews.

KYI6 9UG, Scotland. UK.
© Uniled Kingdom Reading Association 1994

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