Arts Improve Reading and Math

Recent research in two Pawtucket (Rhode Island) public elementary schools produced strong evidence that sequential, skill-building instruction in art and music integrated with the rest of the curriculum can greatly improve children's performance in reading and math. The study was a collaborative effort of The Music School (in Providence, RI), arts specialists in the Pawtucket school system, and the Kodaly Center of America.

In its first year, the study compared four "test arts" classrooms, in which students participated in a music and visual arts program that emphasized sequential skill development and integrated music and visual arts with the curriculum, with four control classrooms, in which students received the school system's standard visual arts and musical training (one hour of visual arts and forty-five minutes of music in alternating weeks). Martin Gardiner, research director at The Music School, found that, although students in the "test arts" classes had started behind the control students in percentage of students at or above the national average of kindergarten Metropolitan Achievement Test scores, they had caught up to statistical equality in reading and had pulled ahead in mathematics after seven months. The study was continued the following year in four "test arts" and five control second-grade classrooms at the same schools. Again test and control groups were equal on reading, and "test arts" pupils were ahead on math. The percentage of students at or above grade level in second-grade math was highest in those with two years of the "test arts" program and was less in those with one year and lowest in those with no "test arts" participation.

Gardiner, a biophysicist, and his colleagues theorize that "learning arts skills forces mental 'stretching' useful to other areas of learning: the math learning advantage (found in this study) could, for example, reflect the development of mental skills such as ordering and other elements of thinking on which mathematical learning at this age also depends." The collaborative team believes the keys to the improvements in math and reading include the sequential skill-building arts curricula and the integration with the rest of the curriculum.