Second-grade and third-grade students were taught fractions in an untraditional manner — by teaching them basic music rhythm notation. The group was taught about the relationships between eighth, quarter, half and whole notes. Their peers received traditional fraction instruction.

When tested, the students who were exposed to the music-based lessons scored a full 100% higher on fractions tests than those who learned in the conventional manner.

One of the researchers, Dr. Frances Rauscher, said, “It has been clearly documented that young students have difficulty understanding the concepts of proportion (heavily based in math and science) and that no successful program has been developed to teach these concepts in the school system.”