Parents have asked me what instrument their child should start with when beginning lessons.  I always tell them the piano.  There are several reasons for my answer, the most important is the piano involves every aspect of the brain as the child decodes what they are seeing and then asks 10 little fingers to play what has been decoded. This process has more benefits than just learning to play an instrument.  "Children exposed to a multi-year programme of music tuition involving training in increasingly complex rhythmic, tonal, and practical skills display superior cognitive performance in reading skills compared with their non-musically trained peers, according to a study published recently in the journal Psychology of Music, published by SAGE."

Researchers continue to study musics effect on early learning and consistently come up with a correlation with academic achievement. A study was done in two elementary schools in the U.S, one had a music program the other did not.  The school that had an ongoing music program included piano as part of the program.  Piro and Ortiz set out to investigate the hypothesis that children who have received keyboard instruction as part of a music curriculum increasing in difficulty over successive years would demonstrate significantly better performance on measures of vocabulary and verbal sequencing than students who did not receive keyboard instruction.

One group studied piano formally for a period of three consecutive years as part of a comprehensive instructional intervention program.  The second group had no exposure to music lessons, either in school programs or private study. Both groups were assessed on two sub-tests from the Structure of Intellect (SOI) measure. Results revealed that the experimental group had significantly better vocabulary and verbal sequencing scores at post-test than did the control group. 

Starting a child on the piano as early as four and continuing their study throughout elementary school will produce the biggest increases.  When the child reaches the age of seven, there is evidence that there are significant spurts of brain growth and gray matter distribution around this developmental period.  Continued study on the piano will result in higher brain activity, increasing cognitive understanding.

If you are a home-school mom and you are looking for a solid piano curriculum for your family, I highly recommend Children's Music Journey Vol. 1, 2 and 3.  You do not need to be a piano teacher to use this software with your children.  With daily use you will be delighted with the results.  Adventus software makes music delivery easy.  You can check this subject off your list knowing that it is completely covered.  

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