If music be the food of learning, play on

Exposure to tunes improves skills

Babies exposed to music are hitting the right notes when they arrive in school, a team of academics will announce today.

As well as enhancing their musical development, their literacy and numeracy skills and ability to mix are also boosted by song and dance, according to researchers from Northumbria University.

The conference in Newcastle will reveal the interim findings of a three-year study, funded by Youth Music, involving 750 under-fives.

And the idea is already going down a storm in the region, where two enterprising North mothers who gave up their jobs to start a musical activity group now see 250 youngsters a week.

Abigail Cotton and Anna Scantlebury set up Piccolo in March 2000. The friends, who were in jobs as a solicitor and training consultant, record their own music CDs for children and are teaching others to give similar classes.

Both mothers of two, they launched the company after seeing the success music had on their own children. Their songs and dancing went down well with Anna's children Jack, seven, and six-year-old Olivia, and Abi's youngsters six-year-old Harriet and Alfie, two, and soon spread to working with local children and their parents.

Jim Clark, head of pre and school learning at Northumbria University, will today outline just how beneficial music can be. Their project has seen trained musicians going into early years classes for one day a week to get children singing, playing musical instruments and listening to music.

Researchers carried out a profile of the youngsters before the study began and are now tracking their development.

Mr. Clark said: "Having trained musicians working with young children on a regular basis is very powerful. It seems to have a significant impact on their musical development and that has knock-on effects on numeracy and literacy."

He said musical activities have a positive impact on cognitive skills, such as numeracy and language rhyming, structure and anticipation.

And music seems to give young children a greater sense of self, develops the idea of taking turns, and helps build social interaction.

Helen Taylor, Northumbria's head of initial teacher training, added: "We all use music in our day-to-day lives far more than we think. For example, we remember phone numbers according to rhythmic patterns.

"In the same way, children pick up the melody of language long before they recognise individual words and music is crucial in building this."

Anna, 36, and Abi, 38, now run eight classes a week in Whitley Bay, with popularity booming in the past four years mainly from word of mouth recommendations.

Anna said: "This just shows what we have learned over the years and what we see in our everyday work.

"A major part of it is confidence about communication with other children, which encourages them to practice their language.

"It's obviously hit a nerve with parents and child care centres. You notice how well they use language and song in comparison to children in schools where they haven't had that early experience."