Effects of phonological and musical training on the reading readiness of native- and foreign-Spanish-speaking children

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a music training program on children’s phonological awareness and naming speed in Spanish. Participants were preschool children whose first language was either Spanish (n = 45) or Tamazight ( n = 52), a Berber dialect spoken in Morocco’s Rif area. The two-year pretest/posttest study showed that the children who received phonological training with or without music performed significantly better in a naming speed posttest and a series of phonological processing tasks than those who did not participate in specialized training. The phonological training that included music activities was particularly effective for the development of phonological awareness of ending sounds and naming speed. The benefits of the training on children’s phonological awareness and naming speed, two strong predictors of reading acquisition, were significant regardless of the native language of the children.