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Study: Classroom background noise especially distracting to young students

educationdive | February 21, 2019

The brains of children ages 6 to 9 have a significantly harder time than adult brains tracking and distinguishing voices amid background noise, such as other voices or sounds, according to Education Week's coverage of a new study conducted by Belgian researchers and published in the Journal of Neuroscience.The research has special implications for elementary students learning to read because young learners must be able to distinguish phonemes and follow instructions, which becomes more difficult for as classroom noise levels rise, Marc Vander Ghinst, the lead author of the study, said in the article. He suggests that teachers in the early grades take the time to pronounce phonemes and words correctly and in a quiet environment.Earlier studies have also noted similar differences in speech tracking in noisy environments between children who have dyslexia and those who don’t, but Vander Ghinst added that more research is needed in this area, especially in the teen years. The language used may also affect the results, as this study involved native French speakers. Clearly pronouncing phonemes and words during reading instruction and keeping the learning environment during reading lessons as quiet as possible might seem like simple instructions, but not all elementary teachers may keep these elements in mind as they teach. This may leave students confused, especially if the teacher or the student has a strong accent or dialect. District leaders can help in this area by sharing such research findings with educators and instructional coaches and making sure that teachers are trained in the proper pronunciation of phonemes.

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