Rock ‘n’ Read Project Education Coordinator Ann Kay and Way to Grow home educators

With a $10,000 Arts and Culture Grant from the city of St. Louis Park, the Minnesota nonprofit Rock ‘n’ Read Project is partnering with Children First and Way to Grow to help families develop their children’s brains for reading. The projects are rooted in research that has revealed that the ability to process and remember sound is the key to language and literacy, and singing and practicing basic music skills are primary ways to develop it. (Northwestern University’s Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory)

Ann Kay, Education Coordinator for Rock ‘n’ Read Project says, “Brain prep for pre-readers starts in the womb.” Research has found that babies pay more attention when a parent sings than when they speak. Hearing singing helps them develop better speech processing and acquire language earlier. Toddlers who are rocked and bounced to a steady beat start to develop beat synchronization, a skill that is linked with reading—children who cannot keep a steady beat are likely struggle with reading. Also, children who can tell the difference between pitches and speak with expression will have better reading comprehension.

Way to Grow is piloting Sing Today, Read Forever Music Kits for families that contain small instruments, research about the benefits of music for brain development, and music-making strategies in English, Spanish, and Somali. Home educators are bringing the kits to families they serve, and the St. Louis Park Library is distributing them during bilingual story hours.

On August
10th, during the city’s weeklong Reading Festival coordinated by Children First, Rock ‘n’ Read Project presented Zap the Gap! Music-Making for Families with Young Children with three music performances, one in English and Swedish, one in Spanish, and one in Somali. The message to families was that music skills can be developed with every culture’s music.

Exciting news! Rock ‘n’ Read Project offers free strategies and a Musical Fitness Assessment on their website, workshops for educators, and A Song a Day: Brain Prep for Pre-Readers, a PreK/K curriculum.

Note: A special thank you to Ann Kay for authoring this Minnesota Literacy Coalition blog. If you would like to feature in an upcoming blog, please reach out to info@minnesotaliteracycoalition.com

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