for significant variance after phonemic awareness had been entered (Table
5). Thus, music ability adds to the prediction of reading skill, once phonological
awareness has been accounted for in both age groups.
The above findings provide evidence for a relation between music perception
and reading skill in 4- and 5-year-old children. Music perception is significantly
correlated with both reading skill and phonological awareness,
but is also predictive of reading in its own right. Therefore, music perception
appears to be tapping auditory mechanisms related to reading skill that only
partially overlap with those related to phonological awareness.
In the remaining regression analyses, we explore various cognitive variables
that might be involved in the relation between music and reading.