The Benefits of Music Education

March is Music in Our Schools Month® (MIOSM)!  It’s a time for music educators, students and communities to come together to not only celebrate music education in schools, but to advocate for its continuation.

What started out as a single day in 1973, celebrated solely in New York, grew into a week and is now a month-long national celebration in schools across the country.    

Schools celebrate Music in Our School’s Month (MIOSM) in various ways including concerts, special lessons, sing-a-longs and any other activities that showcase the benefits of music education.

Why is Music Education Important?

Music education has several cognitive, developmental, emotional and social benefits on students of all ages.

• Cognitively, music expands and strengthens the brain. Students exposed to music education have a larger growth of neural activity. This neural growth gives students advanced memorization capabilities, pattern recognition and spatial intelligence, which is the ability to visualize abstract concepts, especially helpful when applied to mathematics. Students also achieve higher test scores.
• Developmentally, music facilitates maturity in many areas. One of the most widely known is language development. Music develops the left-side of the brain, associated with language processing, which eases verbal communication abilities.
• Emotionally, students will gain confidence due to the sense of accomplishment they will feel from meeting and mastering their music goals. They will also develop empathy toward other cultures due to the global variation in music.
• Socially, students will benefit from building friendships with their musical peers. They will develop teamwork skills, learn discipline and establish character.

Fine Motor Skills

Songs with corresponding movements capture the attention of every learning style. Not only will students memorize important lessons from a variety of subjects, they will also develop strong fine and gross motor skills, which are necessary for participating in critical learning activities, such as writing. Here’s a kinesthetic, foundational, follow-along called "Ten Little Fingers" that encourages students to move their fingers from the Get Set for School Sing Along Music Album. 

Social and Emotional Skills

Music education provides social benefits and is effective in helping students understand socialization. Songs can teach students how to greet one another, take turns, and many more skills needed for classroom collaboration and student cooperation.

The Rock, Rap, Tap & Learn Album helps young students develop self-esteem and body awareness. The Sing, Sound and Count With Me Album prepares Pre-K students for elementary school with songs about letters, numbers, and manners. Finally, the Get Set for School: Sing Along Album combines music with dance and encourages students to get active as they learn foundational concepts. 

At Learning Without Tears we understand the extensive benefits of music and the impact it has on children’s learning and development. That’s why we integrate fun and educational songs into our Pre-K and early elementary school curricula.

• Our NEW Pre-K Interactive Teaching Tool brings learning to life with multimedia assets, including music and videos that include children singing and moving to our music. Find out more here.

• Our Handwriting Interactive Teaching Tool for children in K-5 also features embedded music, videos, and much more. Find out more here.

• Teachers and occupational therapists looking to implement music into their lessons can also find our albums on our website or on iTunes. 

Learning Without Tears wishes you and your students a happy Music in Our Schools Month!

A—Z for Mat Man and Me

By Tania Ferrandino Tania Ferrandino, OTR/L is an Occupational Therapist from Dover, DE. She developed a passion for working with children and ultimately teaching others after attending her first Handwriting Without Tears workshop with Jan Olsen in 2002. She has written a series of grants, taught HWT workshops and made it her mission to help all children achieve handwriting success. She is currently a program specialist and national presenter for Learning Without Tears.