Grant (1981) reported that Hawaiian children were very motivated to write when their teacher asked them to explore and report the meaning of certain classic Hawaiian songs such as "Koni Au," or the "Hawaiian War Chant." Not only did the exercise help them with their written expression, it also helped children to increase their identification with their own culture.
Dryden (1992) investigated the influence of instrumental music instruction on the academic achievement of fifth grade students. In other words, Dryden wanted to determine whether studying music was an actual impetus to learning other basic academic areas. Subjects in the study were 270 fifth grade students (135 boys and 135 girls) attending school in a southwestern Kansas school district in a city of approximately 20,000 people.
The independent variables of the study consisted of: instrumental music status, gender, race, socioeconomic status, family structure, mother's level of formal education, and length of time in the school district. Specific scores from the Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills, Fourth Edition, Level 15 were used as achievement measures while Level 14 scores from the test were used as covariate measures in order to control for response variance due to students' prior achievement level differences.
One hundred sixty four subjects self-selected participation in instrumental music instruction (band or orchestra). Seven composite null hypotheses were tested and the data were analyzed using a single factor analysis of covariance.
Of the 49 comparisons for main effects, 10 were found to be significant at the .05 level. The significant findings included the findings that:
(1) Band participants had statistically higher reading vocabulary and reading total achievement;
(2) Males receiving instrumental instruction scored higher statistically in reading vocabulary; and
(3) Instrumental students whose mothers had a post high sch...