Rhythm but not melody processing helps reading via phonological awareness and phonological memory

Despite abundant evidence that music skills relate to enhanced reading performance, the mechanisms subtending this relation are still under discussion. The Temporal Sampling Framework (TSF) provides a well-defined explanation for the music-reading link: musical rhythm perception would relate to reading because it helps to encode speech units, which, in turn, is fundamental to reading. However, in spite of this clear mediation-based prediction (effect of music skills mediated by the encoding of speech units), the tests made to it so far remain inconclusive, either due to the use of hybrid measures (rhythm perception and production, musical and non-musical rhythm) or to underspecified mediation results (unclear presence of partial mediation). In the present study, we addressed these potential weaknesses of previous studies and investigated whether phonological memory and phonological awareness (proxies of speech encoding abilities) mediate the effects of rhythm perception abilities on reading in late first-graders. To test for the specificity of musical rhythm in this relation, we examined the same hypothesis for melody perception. Results showed full mediation for effects of musical rhythm perception, while melody perception did not even relate to reading. Our findings support the predictions embedded in the TSF and highlight the potential of rhythm-based interventions in early stimulation.