Teachers and administrators are often asked to justify the arts as part of curriculum. Research shows that children learn half of everything they ever know between birth and age 5. It has been well documented that a balanced arts program greatly enhances the ways in which children succeed in all other subjects. Among the many benefits are: increased self esteem, critical reasoning, and problem solving; higher test scores; improved interpersonal skills and resourcefulness.

A quality arts presentation can easily be related to specific units.

The unique languages and skills of various art forms provide opportunities for processing, analyzing, and responding to sensory information. In particular, rhythym, dance, and music stimulate mental processes and develop physical coordination. A strong experience in the musical arts can help students apply what is learned and extend it to the other arts, as well as to academic subjects and even to careers.

Phonemics
The activities in Evo Bluestein's music and dance program for younger students, help with phonemics--the understanding that the sounds of spoken language work together to make words. Children who have phonemic awareness skills are likely to have an easier time learning to read than children who have few or none of these skills.

Phonemes are the smallest parts of the sound in a spoken word that make a difference in the word's meaning. If children are to benefit from phonics (the understanding that there is a predictable relationship between phonemes and graphemes, the letters that represent those sounds in written language) they need phonemic awareness.

It has been demonstrated that children who cannot hear and work with the phonemes of spoken words will have a difficult time learning how to relate these phonemes to the graphemes when they see them in written words.

Phonemic awareness is a subcategory of phonological awareness. The focus of phomemic awareness is narrow--identifying and manipulating the individual sounds in words. The focus of phonological awareness is much broader. It includes identifying and manipulating larger parts of spoken language, such as words, syllables, and onsets and rimes--as well as phonemes. It also encompasses awareness of other aspects of sound, such as rhyming, alliteration, and intonation. (Information taken from the National Institute for Literacy, "Put Reading First")
Third grade students learn to sing folk songs before playing autoharp at McCabe School in Mendota, CA.

Making A Case for the Arts
by Barry Hessenius,
Director of the California Arts Council

We've had three core arguments for the value of the arts: 1) the arts are an economic engine producing jobs, tax revenue and economic activity; 2) the arts add significantly to the education and the preparation of our kids; and 3) the arts are good for civic life. We may now have a fourth argument: Professor Richard Florida's thesis of the importance of nurturing an environment attractive to the emerging Creative Class. If his thesis is true, then investing in the arts and creativity is a much wiser public policy in terms of economic development and competitive advantage than supporting sports stadiums with public money; smarter than using taxpayer money to subsidize industrial parks; sounder than continuing to supporting existing industries and special interests.

Despite the evidence, the arts are not yet seen as an economic tool. Dr. Florida says there are 38 million people now in the Creative Class. Those 38 million people--where they live, what they do, the choices they make--will determine the economic future of every state, city and area of this country in the next two decades, and probably long beyond. Florida's thesis is that this class is attracted to places where there is diversity and tolerance--a mixture of quasi-bohemian culture and openness to creativity. The arts, particularly the cutting edge, newer arts, help to create the environment that the Creative Class seeks and demands. They want an environment where creativity is pervasive, valued and growing; where new ideas are the dominant currency. They want the energy and excitement that exists when creativity flourishes.

I think in the very near future, creativity will be recognized as the economic force for the future. The economic crisis should herald an increase in the investment, not cuts. But we haven't yet been able to convince key decision makers of this. And that's what we have to do.

For the full text please go to: http://www.cac.ca.gov
and click on weekly update.

San Francisco Chronicle September 6, 2005
Study says music lessons improve IQs

Music lessons trigger increases in the IQs of 6-year-old children, according to one of the most thorough studies on the subject.

Although previous resaearch had hinted that musical training was associated with better literacy, math and spatial skills, much of it had compared children getting music lessons only with those getting none, leaving open the questions of whether children getting the lessons had certain family advantages to begin with, and of whether the improvements were the result of music specifically or just the result of structured, extracurricular training in an artistic skill.

A new study be E. Glenn Schallenberg at the University of Toronto addressed these questions by recruiting one hundred forty-four 6-year-olds into four groups: those receiving voice lessons, keyboard lessons, drama lessons and no lessons.

Children receiving the voice lessons amd keyboard lessons showed small but clear improvements on IQ tests, gaining an average of 6 and 7 IQ points, respectively. Children receiving drama lessons had an increase of 5 points, while the children getting no lessons had an improvement of 4 points.

In a paper published in the current issue of Psychological Science, Schallenberg conludes that musical training in particular was responsible for the extra IQ points.

Associated Press November 15, 2001

"Neuroscientists are increasingly studying how we hear and play music since few activities draw on so many functions of the brain including memory, learning, motor control, emotion, hearing and creativity, said Dr. Robert Zatorre of the Montreal Neurological Institute."

"'It offers a window onto the highest levels of human cognition,'" Zatorre said.

The Arts: Critical Links to Student Success
Richard J. Deasy and Lauren Stevenson, Arts Education Partnership

Cutting school arts programs in an effort to boost student academic achievement will be counterproductive, a new analysis of research studies suggests, and may be particularly damaging to young children and students from economically disadvantaged circumstances. In the No Child Left Behind Act" Congress named the arts as one of the core subjects that all schools should teach. These studies show the wisdom of that decision and the benefits of arts learning for every child.

The studies and essays in Critical Links point to strong relationships between learning in the arts and fundamental cognitive skills and capacities used in mastering other subjects including reading, writing and mathematics. Skills important to social interaction - including empathy, collaboration, and tolerance for others - are nutured by the arts, the studies report.

Critical Links explores positive attitudes toward learning developed by studying and practicing the arts, and the relationship of these motivations to academic performance and social behavior. Engagement in learning, paying attention, and persisting at tasks are among the attitudes cited in the studies.

Other reasoning skills cited in the Compendium studies include "problem solving," "conditional thinking" (the abiity to generate and test theories) and the components of creative thinking:" originality, elaboration, fluency and flexibility. The latter skills are used when we imagine and act on new ideas and possibilities.

Critical Links further suggests that the arts can have an impact on the whole school by creating a learning environment conducive to more effective teaching. For instance, studies look at the positive effect on teacher innovation," "teacher awareness of student abilities," and the "professional culture" of the school.

Critical Links was Published by the Arts Education Partnership (AEP), a coalition of more than 100 national education, arts, business, and philanthropic organizations.

Copies of Critical Links can be ordered by calling the Council of Chief State School officers at (202) 336-7016. a PDF version is available on the Arts Education Partnership.