Music Bridging the Achievement Gap
Music Together programs have been successfully integrated into hundreds of classrooms across the country to comprehensively raise the quality of learning, both in class and at home.
Music Together programs have also been an integral part of two large-scale, federally- and state-funded projects designed to bridge the achievement gap for at-risk children in preschool classrooms. In both cases, music was shown to be a powerful learning tool supporting children’s school readiness skills.
Since 2000, Music Together has been a part of public pre-K classrooms in the Trenton, NJ, school system through the Music for the Very Young (MVY) program. To date, MVY has served more than 3000 children and their families.
In 2003, the Trenton Community Music School and Music Together partnered with the Education Resources Group on a three-year study of the impact of Music Together on preschool children’s school readiness and long-term literacy. Funded through the U.S. Department of Education: Arts in Education Innovation Grant, results showed that music-making does support the attributes young children need for school success. The study also reported that the Music Together program model helps bring families together through the inclusion of home materials that engage parents and caregivers.
Music Together was a key component of an arts-based program serving vulnerable families with children from birth through third grade. Independent research showed that public and Head Start preschool children whose classes used the Music Together program made significantly greater gains in the cognitive, language, and physical development domains than students in classrooms that were not assigned to receive Music Together (Michael Cohen Group, external evaluator, 2008).
A new phase of research began in 2014 under ABCD’s Bridge Together initiative to explore Music Together’s impact on parent/caregiver involvement. Pilot results show that Music Together increases parents’ self-efficacy, awareness, and knowledge of school preparedness, and the positive use of music in young children’s learning (Michael Cohen Group, external evaluator, 2016).