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Benefits of music lessons for kids: what the research supports
Updated 2026-11-14
Research supports a few modest benefits of music lessons beyond the music itself. Reviews find a small gain in the sound skills that feed reading, better self-control in several trials, and stronger social skills for some children in group lessons. The evidence on IQ and school results is mixed. The surest benefit is that a child learns music.
This page sums up published studies. It is general information, not advice about any one child.
The short version
| Claimed benefit | What studies found | Kind of evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Learning to play, sing, and read music | Yes | No study needed |
| Sound awareness for reading | A small gain | A review of 13 training studies |
| Reading fluency | No clear gain | The same review |
| How the brain handles speech sounds | A change after two years | One randomized study |
| Self-control | A gain | A review of 22 studies, 8 of them randomized |
| Sympathy and helping, in group lessons | A gain for children who started with weak social skills | One study with a matched group |
| IQ and school results | Reviews disagree | Several reviews |
Reading skills
In 2015, Reyna Gordon and two colleagues pooled 13 studies with 901 children. Each study compared children who got music training with children who did not. Each one also kept reading lessons the same for both groups.
They looked at two reading skills.
Sound awareness. This is the skill of hearing the small sounds inside words, such as rhymes. Music training led to a gain. The authors called it small. Gains in rhyming tended to grow with more hours of training.
Reading fluency. This is reading with speed and ease. The pooled studies showed no clear gain.
Speech sounds in the brain
In 2014, Nina Kraus and her team at Northwestern University studied a community program that gives free music lessons to children from underserved backgrounds. The study placed children into groups by chance.
After two years of lessons, the children’s brains did a better job of telling similar speech sounds apart. Earlier work links that response to reading and language skills. One year of lessons was not enough to show the change.
Self-control
Researchers call it inhibition control. It means stopping an impulse, such as waiting for a turn or not blurting out an answer.
In 2024, a team in Montreal pooled 22 studies with 1,734 children. Music training improved this skill. In the eight randomized trials, the effect was moderate to large. Across all 22 studies, it was small to moderate.
A 2025 review looked at ten studies of children aged three to six. The music groups did better than the comparison groups on self-control, on holding things in mind, and on switching between tasks. The gains were clear in programs that ran for 12 weeks or more.
Social skills
In 2015, Glenn Schellenberg and his team at the University of Toronto followed children in grades 3 and 4. One group had ten months of music lessons taught in groups. A matched group did not.
The music group gained more in sympathy and in helpful behavior. The gain showed up only in children who began the year with weak social skills. It held even where the lessons were required, so it was not just a matter of which families chose music.
IQ and school results
Here the reviews disagree. One large review found no effect in the best-designed studies. Another found a small one. Read does classical music make kids smarter? for the details.
Four cautions
The effects are small. A small average gain across a group does not promise a change in one child.
The programs differ from a weekly lesson. The studies tested set programs, such as group classes in schools and community programs. The review of young children found gains in self-control in programs that met three or more times a week. A weekly lesson is a lighter schedule.
Benefits took time. The speech study needed two years. In the reading review, rhyming gains tended to grow with more hours.
More good studies are needed. A 2025 map of 402 studies on music and movement programs asked for more randomized trials and a wider range of tests.
Benefits that need no study
- A child who takes lessons learns to play an instrument or sing
- A child who learns to read music can play pieces they have never heard
- A child in a band, orchestra, or choir makes music with others
- A child who performs has practiced getting ready for a date and showing up
What this means for your family
Choose lessons for the music. Count any other gain as a bonus.
Pick something your child can stay with. The gains in these studies came after months or years.
Consider a group. The social gains came from group lessons. Read private vs group music lessons.
Be wary of big promises. No study here supports a claim that lessons will raise grades.
Related pages
- Music lessons for kids: a parent’s guide
- Music lessons for kids with ADHD: what helps
- Music lessons for autistic kids: how to find the right fit
- How much do music lessons cost for kids?
Sources
Checked in November 2026. Study summaries were retrieved from PubMed.
- Gordon, R. L., Fehd, H. M., and McCandliss, B. D. (2015). Does music training enhance literacy skills? A meta-analysis. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1777.
- Kraus, N., Slater, J., Thompson, E. C., Hornickel, J., Strait, D. L., Nicol, T., and White-Schwoch, T. (2014). Music enrichment programs improve the neural encoding of speech in at-risk children. Journal of Neuroscience, 34(36), 11913 to 11918.
- Jamey, K., Foster, N. E. V., Hyde, K. L., and Dalla Bella, S. (2024). Does music training improve inhibition control in children? A systematic review and meta-analysis. Cognition, 252, 105913.
- Lu, Y., Shi, L., and Musib, A. F. (2025). Effects of music training on executive functions in preschool children aged 3 to 6 years. Frontiers in Psychology, 15, 1522962.
- Schellenberg, E. G., Corrigall, K. A., Dys, S. P., and Malti, T. (2015). Group music training and children’s prosocial skills. PLoS One, 10(10), e0141449.
- Theroux, B. M., Eggins, E., Paynter, J., Dawe, S., and Williams, K. E. (2025). A systematic review and evidence gap map evaluation of rhythmic and complex movement interventions and child cognitive outcomes. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 28(4), 912 to 929.
- Sala, G., and Gobet, F. (2020). Cognitive and academic benefits of music training with children: a multilevel meta-analysis. Memory and Cognition, 48(8), 1429 to 1441.
- Román-Caballero, R., Vadillo, M. A., Trainor, L. J., and Lupiáñez, J. (2022). Please don’t stop the music. Educational Research Review, 35, 100436.
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This article is part of Music lessons for kids: a parent's guide to starting, choosing, and practicing.
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Use it with your kids
Print a listening page, a practice chart, or a composer fact sheet. Or try a tool, such as the composer timeline or the piece picker.