Movement-Based Music in the Classroom: Investigating the Effects of Music Programs Incorporating Body Movement in Primary School Children

The present studies investigated the impacts of the different implementation of body movement into classroom-based comprehensive music programs on the development of music-related and nonmusical abilities in Hungarian primary school children. In Study 1, science-focused classes received Kodaly music lessons completed with teacher-directed movements or no movement activities. In Study 2, intensive music classes participated in Kodaly music lessons combined either with teacher-directed or improvised movement elements. From the beginning of schooling, participants were measured three times over 1.5 years for musical abilities, sensorimotor entrainment, phonemic awareness, rapid naming, reading, executive functions, and IQ. Results revealed distinct developmental trajectories for melody discrimination, phonemic awareness, and verbal IQ in the science classes; however, the classes' comparable performance at the first and last measurements indicated that their overall growth was similar. Moreover, performance of the intense music classes was comparable at the end of the second school year even though the class with the music curriculum using teacher-directed movements showed greater improvements in rapid naming of pictures and verbal IQ. These findings suggest that in the early school years, diverse movement-based music programs provided in classroom settings supported musical, sensorimotor entrainment, early literacy, and cognitive development similarly.