Music Skills Link to Reading Scores

Children Improve Music Skills

Kindergartners Outscore
all 50 Minneapolis Public Schools

After using singing games to practice letter sounds for 3 months, 3 kindergartens at an elementary school with a high poverty level outscored all other schools and made the most growth from fall to winter in knowing letter sounds.

4th Graders Make Large Gains in Fluency

After playing singing games and reading the lyrics many times, a 4th grade class significantly improved in fluency and greatly outscored the other 4th grade class. (Fluency is the ability to read words, phrases, sentences, and stories accurately, quickly, expressively, with good phrasing and good comprehension.)

Struggling Readers Become Proficient

In the fall, most of the first grade students in one class were below reading level. Using singing games, they practiced sight words daily. After only 3 months, 77% were reading at or near grade level, and by the end of the year, nearly all were reading at grade level.

Struggling Readers Make Phenomenal Gains in Only 14 Hours

With $600,000 in funding from the MN Legislature, Rock ‘n’ Read implemented a singing-based software program, TUNEin to Reading (TiR) for 5 years. Data analysis of the MN Comprehensive Assessment in reading (MCA) scores from 2017 to 2018 showed that 1/3 of 4th and 5th graders went up a level (from Does Not Meet to Partly Meets proficiency) after only 13.5 hours of usage. This affirmed existing research studies that found that students typically gain 1 year (avg.) in reading after 13.5 hours of singing with the software program.

The 500 fourth and fifth graders at those schools who did not use TiR did not make significant gains in reading levels on the MCA.