W4_Reading

Integrating Music and Children’s Literature

Calogero, J. (2002). Integrating Music and Children’s Literature. Music Educators Journal, 88(5), 23. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

This week I continued with my reading by selecting four articles specifically related to this music and literacy connection. The first article was entitled, “Integrating Music and Children’s Literature” written by Joanna Calogero, an arts educator in southern New York. Calogero makes it rather clear from the onset that music and literature plays an integral role in helping students learn different ways that ideas and emotions can be expressed creatively. In fact, she goes as far as to say that music helps in allowing students to “make sense of their world and their place in it.” She shares that teachers, rather than isolating each subject, are working to cross disciplines so that connections are made. It is quoted, “Language arts, however, that forms the catalyst binding all the content areas.”

For any teacher, this is a task that requires at least two important parts. First, it requires organization. Calogero suggests going through all of the available music and literature resources and organizing them by themes. It seems that the most practical and efficient way for this connection to take place is by using a thematic approach.

To help with this organization, Calogero offers eight musical categories to organize books.

1. Books that are songs (e.g., “Yankee Doodle” and the “Eensy Weensy Spider”)

2. Songbooks

3. Books in which the important of music is the theme

4. Books, either fictional or nonfictional, about composers or musicians

5. Books, either fictional or nonfictional, about instruments or other musical concepts

6. Books with a natural rhythm, including poetry and picture books with strong patterns or rhythmic sense

7. Books in which aspects of music are included, but are not primary to the story

To conclude her article, she offers an in-depth look at a unit on animals, as well as providing an extensive list of books for classroom use.

Children’s Literature in the Music Classroom: Finding the Music Within

Gauthier, D. (2005). Children's Literature in the Music Classroom: Finding the Music Within. Music Educators Journal, 91(3), 51-56. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

The second article was by Delores Gauthier, an associate professor of music education at Western Michigan University entitled, “Children’s Literature in the music Classroom: Finding the Music Within.” Gauthier clearly pinpoints the value of reading. She says, “Reading to students aids in the understanding of story structure, broadens familiarity with different styles of books, and helps to increase vocabulary. Book language is often different from spoken language, and reading allows students to hear different ways of expressing thoughts.” She later parallels this with how books help the music curriculum, as well. She writes, “Books can help students understand musical structure, become aware of different styles of music, and develop a musical vocabulary and musical skills.”

With this said, Gauthier cautions that it is important to find just the right book. To continue this thought, she offers three suggestions. First, she says that selecting the right book is all about “finding the music within.” The idea here is that some books may not necessarily be written to help students understand musical concepts, but they might be rhythmic nature or could be easily set to a melody. Second, remain open minded about all kinds of books. Third, a book may be useful at various age levels.

The rest of the article focused on various books and their connection with various musical concepts including Barnyard Banter by Denise Fleming, Do You See A Mouse? by Bernard Waber and others.

Using Music to Support the Literacy Development of Young English Language Learners

Paquette, K., & Rieg, S. (2008). Using Music to Support the Literacy Development of Young English Language Learners. Early Childhood Education Journal, 36(3), 227-232. doi:10.1007/s10643-008-0277-9.

The third article by Paquette and Rieg focuses on how music and literacy help English language learners. The article opens with a story that concludes with this statement, “Children’s music is not always like adult music.” This statement is very powerful and thought provoking, to say the least. The point is this—despite a teacher’s level of expertise or musical training every teacher needs to foster creativity through music within his or her classroom.

The authors mention that the first experiences for a child with patterned text usually occur through songs, chants and rhymes. Many children’s songs are repetitive in nature, which obviously allows students the opportunity to hear words over and over again.

It is suggested that songs can be used “to teach a variety of language skills, such as sentence patterns, vocabulary, pronunciation, rhythm, and parts of speech. Prosodic features of the language—stress, rhythm, and intonation—can be presented through song as well.”

In regards to fluency, “paired or partner reading, echo reading, choral reading and phrasing are four instruction strategies often used to improve reading fluency.” These four strategies are connected with music and Paquette and Rieg make it rather clear how they can be implemented. This was perhaps the most beneficial portion for this article seeing that my action research is directed at fluency.

Enhancing learning through multiple intelligences.

Özdemir, P., Güneysu, S., & Tekkaya, C. (2006). Enhancing learning through multiple intelligences. Journal of Biological Education, 40(2), 74-78. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

The final article expands the idea of music interventions to all of Gardner’s multiple intelligences. In fact, this article shares a study conducted with two fourth grade classes where one was instructed utilizing all of the multiple intelligences and the other focused on more traditional methods.

Gardner suggests that the verbal-linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligences seem to have dominated the traditional teaching. However, the other six intelligences, of which music is one, are normally overlooked.

One of the most intriguing aspects of this article was how the dominant intelligences for students seemed to change throughout their school years. The authors give an in-depth look at which intelligences were the highest at the elementary, middle and high school years.

This article has helped me think through the organization and set-up of my own study and how the data will be collected, as well. Needless to say, this week’s reading has been extremely helpful.

All visuals contained in this blog were obtained from www.flickr.com/creativecommons/ with Attribution License in Creative Commons.

W3_Reading

The Link Between Music and Literacy

Chappell, J. (2008). The Link Between Music and Literacy. Teaching Music, 15(5), 46. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

The connection between music and literacy is rather strong, according to Chappell. Educators are working to establish this link and have highlighted some of the parallels between the two disciplines. Dee Hansen, author of “The Music and Literacy Connection, as quoted by Chappell says, “Literacy means to read and write. But beyond that, it’s comprehending symbols and interpreting visual and auditory images, not limited to reading words.” He continues by offering the similarities, “Most basic skills used in text reading, or decoding—the breaking of the visual code of symbols into sounds—find parallels in musical reading. Instrumentalists and vocalists read music symbols. In choral music, one must additionally read text or lyrics as they correspond to the musical symbols.”

There are stages of learning, each of which has elements of both reading and music:

• Phonological awareness (the ability to discriminate between sounds, like high vs. low or loud vs. soft)
• Phonemic awareness (understanding the smallest units of language and sound)
• Sight identification (recognizing high-utility words or common music symbols by glancing at them)
• Orthographic awareness (the use of letters and other symbols in a writing system or musical language)
• Cueing systems awareness (the context of the phrases or sentences and musical setting
• Fluency (clear expression of ideas, effortless music performance)

Although music can obviously act as an intervention the caution is that music is a discipline of its own and should not be solely used as a “music-helps-you-do-English-and-math-better philosophy.”

Structured English Immersion in the Music Classroom: Music Instruction for Crossing Borders

Cooper, S., & Grimm-Anderson, S. (2007). Structured English Immersion (SEI) in the Music Classroom: Music Instruction for Crossing Borders. General Music Today, 20(2), 20-24. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

This article dealt strictly with students whose primary language is not English; however, many of the same elements used to teach these students carry over to the learning we want to take place in our literacy classes.

The question that Cooper and Grimm-Anderson answer is, “How do music teachers and other arts specialists address this dilemma [educating those who struggling with the English language]?”

The following are some key points of advice from these authors:

• Incorporate visuals
• Students will first work to understand what is being said before they will acquire the ability to speak the new language
• Create a low-risk environment
• Incorporate word walls and living walls
• Understand that the first step to learning a language is listening
• Utilize finger plays
• Use pictures to accompany phrases
• Make sure to allow ample wait time
• Review key concepts and vocabulary consistently

Making Music, Reaching Readers

D'Agrosa, E. (2008). Making Music, Reaching Readers. General Music Today, 21(2), 6-10. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

The arts enhance learning. This is the simply the premise of D’Agrosa’s article. Eric Jensen is quoted by D’Agrosa as saying, The arts “enhance and motivate other learning. The systems they nourish, which include our integrated sensory, attentional, cognitive, emotional, and other motor capacities, are, in fact, the driving forces behind all other learning.” So how does this work? D’Agrosa argues that it can only happen if the classroom educator and the music educator collaborate intentionally. The following are some suggestions for this to work:

• Give time, energy and creativity
• Understand the vocabulary of each discipline
• Learn how the skills of each discipline are connected
• Develop an intentional plan of delivery for each of the skills

Components of Reading & their Musical Connections

• Phonological awareness is “a multilevel skill of breaking down words into smaller units.” In music, students could identify and create oral rhymes, with one such example being, “Twinkle, twinkle little star.”
• Awareness of Phonemes is understanding the smallest units of sound. The music teacher can aid in this by looking at nonsense sounds and vocal exploration activities.
• Syllabification is obviously understanding that words are broken down into syllables, which is taught in the music classroom through the reading of rhythms. An example that is suggested is one of Eric Carle’s books called, “Today is Monday.” For instance, the reading teacher could read the book and have students brainstorm foods that could be eaten on any day of the week. Then, the music teacher could take those words and create a rhyme before having the students perform them with movement and non-pitched instruments.
• Fluency is simply the ability to read a text correctly and quickly. Also, this normally includes reading it effortlessly and with expression. Reading and singing through “Miss Mary Mack” with a sense of fluidity would be a connection for the music teacher.
• Vocabulary refers to words we know to communicate. The intentional connection is to demonstrate vocabulary knowledge through active participation.
• Comprehension is simply understanding what is read. For the music teacher, create context and help students construct meaning for the songs that they sing.

Literacy and Art in the Music Class

Kenney, S. (2009). Literacy and Art in the Music Class. General Music Today, 22(3), 25-28. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

In this article, the author had a chance to visit some elementary music schools in Moscow, Russia. There were two enlightening strategies that these schools were utilizing. First, there was a strong music and art connection. In fact, time was given to students to illustrate songs that they learned in music class or masterpieces were paired up with a song. For example, “Clap your Hands,” was linked with Van Gogh’s painting, “Two Hands.” The second discovery was what they called a “book basket.” Each student was given a blank book (simply an 8 ½ by 11 inch paper folded into 8 rectangles) where they could create a picture for each phrase of the song. Further, the words of the song were printed in the book. This allowed the students to connect music with their printed word and illustrations.

All visuals contained in this blog were obtained from www.flickr.com/creativecommons/ with Attribution License in Creative Commons