Ever wonder why it’s so much easier to memorize a song than study text? Lane Karlitz wondered the same thing. But in Lane’s case, singing songs and studying weren’t mutually exclusive activities. That’s because 15-year-old Lane sang his study material.

It was a practice that started when Lane was just 13 years old. He was in Spanish class and having trouble studying for his test. His Spanish teacher’s husband created 30-second ditties to assist the class in remembering their verb conjugations.

“It helped me,” said Lane. “I thought about how for each class, how much easier that would be, how helpful that would be.”

Lane began to memorize key study terms by placing them inside popular songs, which led to better grades. This inspired Lane to make studying more enjoyable for other kids.

“There should be an app for that,” he said.

Study Senses was born out of this desire to help other kids create the soundtrack to their schoolwork. Once you speak study text into the mobile app, you select a tune from the app’s library, and voila, the computer algorithm matches the voice to the melody, creating a customized study song sung in your very own voice. The app comes equipped with the ability to adjust the tempo, speeding up or slowing down your customized study song.

“Study Senses is a revolutionary mobile application designed to make studying easy and enjoyable,” says Lane.

Here’s why we believe Study Senses - which by the way won second place at the national 2015 Young Entrepreneurs Academy contest - can boost your child’s school performance.

Music produces dopamine.

Research shows that listening to pleasurable music increases the release of dopamine in the brain. The “feel good” neurotransmitter promotes learning by helping information stick. When dopamine is present during an event or experience, we are far more likely to remember it. One of the fun attributes of Study Senses is that you get to choose a song of your liking from their library. If you don’t like the song you chose, simply choose a different song and re-record.

Music paves the way for more connections.

Due to the way our brains store and retrieve information, it’s easier to access information that has more associations. The main difference between memorizing text and remembering a song is the number of different associations. When we remember a song, we also remember the tune, a certain voice, and probably different instruments. All of these elements provide our brains with more ways to access the memory we are looking for. One of the cool features of Study Senses is that the study song you create is sung in the voice that was used to record the study text. The voice recognition alone is sure to trigger the memory of when the Civil War was fought.

Repetition is natural with songs.

When we hear a piece of music we like, we tend to listen to it again and again. That’s not so much the case with study text, no matter how much we enjoyed what we read. Repetition is key for memorization because it strengthens the network of neurons in our brain.

Other incentives

If a more enjoyable study experience isn’t incentive enough, Study Senses, which is slated to be released mid to late 2017, is working on turning their current freemium model into an affiliate program: create a song, upload it on iTunes, and keep a portion of the sale if someone buys it. Students can now sing to the tune of better grades and a profit.

You can follow Lane's progress on Facebook and at studysenses.com.

Deborah Song