Peer-reviewed article
When music tells a story: children's language and socioemotional development through music-supported narrative learning.
Ma R, Chen C ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This systematic review examined how music integrated with storytelling supports language and social-emotional development in children aged 3-12 years. The review included 19 empirical studies and found that music-supported narrative learning takes various forms, including singing stories, combining music with movement, and creating music together with narratives. While language outcomes were mixed, social-emotional benefits were more consistently observed, particularly when children participated actively in creating and performing music with stories together.
Key points
- Practices ranged from using music to enhance existing stories to children creating their own music-narrative combinations
- Language and narrative outcomes were heterogeneous across studies; more favorable results occurred when music was directly aligned with the language or story content, though this pattern was inconsistent
- Social-emotional benefits were more frequently reported, especially in group and collaborative activities that emphasized expression and relationships
- The review identified two emerging patterns: music supporting information organization and music supporting emotional expression and relational connection
- The evidence suggests the importance of considering which specific musical functions and how children participate (passive listening versus active creation) in relation to desired outcomes
Limitations
The review did not identify specific countries of origin for the studies reviewed, making it unclear which regions' evidence is represented. The heterogeneous findings on language outcomes mean the review cannot definitively establish when and why music-supported narrative learning works for language development.
Abstract
Background The WHO Regional Office for Europe has increasingly recognized the potential value of arts and music participation for children's health, well-being, and development. However, how music supports children's learning when integrated with narrative activities remains insufficiently understood. Objective This review examined the practice structures, language-narrative and socioemotional outcomes, and learner- and design-related conditions associated with music-supported narrative learning for children aged 3-12 years. Methods Following PRISMA 2020, Scopus, Web of Science, and ERIC were searched for English-language original empirical studies published from January 2016 to August 2026. Nineteen studies were included. Inductive thematic synthesis, outcome-oriented narrative synthesis, and cross-study explanatory synthesis were used. Quantitative and qualitative evidence were synthesized separately before integration, and cross-study relationships were interpreted as patterns of co-occurrence. Results Practices included auditory enhancement of predefined narratives, sung or rhythmized text, embodied and multimodal activities, and generative music-narrative creation. Language-narrative findings were heterogeneous. More favorable outcomes were reported in some studies when music was functionally aligned with target language or narrative content, but this pattern was inconsistent. Socioemotional evidence more often concerned expressive, participatory, and relational affordances, especially in generative and collaborative practices. Conclusion This review integrates language-narrative and socioemotional evidence within a common framework and identifies two emerging patterns-information organization and expression-relationship-shifting attention from whether music works to which musical functions and participation structures relate to particular outcomes, although these patterns require further validation.