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Piano
and computer training boost
students´ math achievement |
| Center for the
Neurobiology of Learning and Memory
University of California, Irvine.
Adapted by Mario Gutierrez |
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Taking
piano lessons and solving math puzzles on a computer significantly
improves specific math skills of elementary school children,
according to a study by UC Irvine researchers.
The results of the study are the latest in a series that link
musical training to the development of higher brain functions,
said UCI physics professor emeritus Gordon Shaw, who led the
study.
Researchers worked with 135 second-grade students at the 95th
Street School in Los Angeles after conducting a pilot study
with 102 Orange County students. Children given four months
of piano keyboard training, as well as time playing with newly
designed computer software, scored 27 percent higher on proportional
math and fractions tests than other children. The study was
funded through grants from
the Texaco Foundation, The Gerard Family Trust and Newport
Beach philanthropist Marjorie Rawlins.
Piano instruction is thought to enhance the
brain’s ”hard-wiring” for spatial-temporal
reasoning, or the ability to visualize and transform objects
in space and time, Shaw said. Music involves ratios,
fractions, proportions and thinking in space and time.
At the same time, the computer game, called Spatial-Temporal
Animation Reasoning (STAR) allows children to solve geometric
and math puzzles that boost their ability
to manipulate shapes in their minds.
Children who took piano lessons and played with the math software
performed better on tests of fractions and proportional math
than children who took English language instruction on the
computer and played with the math software, and better than
those who had neither piano lessons nor experience with the
math software, Shaw said. Puzzles in the STAR game allow children
to apply the type of mental acuity that appears
to be heightened by piano practice. ”Proportional math
is usually introduced during the sixth grade, and has proved
to be enormously difficult to teach to most children using
the usual language-analytic methods,” Shaw said. ”Not
only is proportional math crucial for all college-level science,
but it is the first academic hurdle that
requires the children to grasp underlying
concepts before they can master the material. Rote
learning simply does not work.”
Students who used the software and played the piano also demonstrated
a heightened ability to think ahead, Shaw said. ”They
were able to leap ahead several steps on
problems in their heads,” he noted.
These findings offer not only new insight into the theory
of mental development, but also a potentially powerful teaching
tool, capable of stimulating second-grade children to master
critical sixth-grade reasoning concepts. The piano teaching
and software helped children regardless of
income level, boosting achievement of students in low socioeconomic
settings..
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| Glossary |
fund:
financiar
grant: donación
enhance: mejorar
ratios: relaciones
boost: aumentar
acuity: la habilidad de pensar claramente
hurdle: obstáculo
grasp: entender
rote learning: aprendizaje mecánico
leap ahead: adelantarse
regardless: independientemente
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