Without music education, children may be missing a vital key in language learning

Primary schools all over Australia are beginning to look more closely at their music education programs. Processing speech sounds is the first step in language learning, and a baby's brain is using its music processing network to distinguish those speech sounds at, and even before, birth. After the music processing network gets going, the language processing network jumps on board and starts using the same pathway to process language sounds. Yet these powerful initiatives are yet to include a complementary learning activity that we used to have every day for every child — music education. If every student's brain is using music to enhance their language processing pathway, which then improves literacy levels, why have we not yet used it as effectively as we could?