RM Winter 2016 FLIP

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Reading Matters
Teaching Matters
Reading Matters | Volume 16 • Winter 2016 | |41|
A very simple variant of Five Little Ducks using animals
and numbers that are familiar and interest children or
that comes from their own ideas could be developed:
Seven little lambs went out one day,
over the field and far away.
Mother sheep said,
“Baa, baa, baa, baa.”
But only four little lambs came back.
Again, such chart stories or class-created Big Books can be
illustrated by the children—young learners take great pride
in sharing and reading such class-created texts. Smith (2000)
and Jalongo and Ribblett (1997) offer many familiar songs
and song book titles that can be used to create variations.
As suggested by the text variant above, creations of their
own texts through shared or interactive writing can encourage
learners to look carefully at the print and develop a variety of
sight words. The rhyming words, in this case, day and away can
also be used to teach analogies or word patterns. Thus, another
area in which music instruction can benefit reading instruction
is word identification. Young readers must learn to recognize
letters and words automatically, much like music students must
learn to recognize notes and groups of notes, in order to adjust
vocal placement. This action allows both readers and musicians
to demonstrate fluent reading/singing. As indicated by the –ay
pattern of day and away in the Over in the Meadow text, children
must also develop orthographic/spelling awareness. Teachers
can use familiar songs to help learners understand that letters
grouped together (in vowels, blends, diphthongs, and digraphs,
as examples) form a range of sounds that can change according
to their position in a word and that these groups can represent
patterns of onsets, such as the d in day and the rime, -ay in day.
The rhyming patterns in many songs promote such phonological
and orthographic awareness. Finally, Hansen and Bornstorf
(2002) affirm that music instruction benefits students in the early
stages of reading because music students and reading students
alike must acquire an ability to listen for whether something
“sounds right.” For readers, this involves syntactic, semantic, and
graphophonic considerations, aiding the understanding and
development of cueing systems as learners read and sing the print.
Music and Songs in the Elementary
Years and Beyond
As children become older, their interest and knowledge of music
grows. Relating reading to something children hold valuable such
as popular music supports motivation to read; hearing the song
and reading the lyrics makes reading a delightful and engaging
experience. Often in our university summer reading clinic, when
we have upper-elementary and middle school reluctant readers,
we will ask them to name some of their favorite popular songs,
and we then collaborate with them on locating the lyrics and
putting together a notebook of songs that they can read, sing, and
enjoy. As lyrics are repetitive, using songs in classroom instruction
supports students as they read the lyrics. Song structures allow
students to hear and anticipate when lines are repeated; predicting
particular language syntax or a word that makes sense in context
is an important strategy for reading as well as a resource for
decoding unknown words and monitoring comprehension.
Julie experienced the power of such activities during her
recent student teaching. Capitalizing upon what she had learned
about music and reading, she decided to take advantage of every
opportunity to incorporate music into classroom instruction. While
teaching a unit on poetry to a group of fourth grade students, Julie
was amazed at the shift in attitude that using music had in her
classroom. To support students’ interest and literary interpretations
skills, she invited students to listen to the song “Home” by Phillip
Phillips. Students wrote what they thought the song meant in
their reading journals before sharing their ideas with the whole
class. What a difference! Julie was amazed to see the increased
number of students wanting to share their perceptions of the
song as compared to the few raised hands the day before when
asked to share their thoughts on a poem! Frequently, students
would groan when handed a poem or a text that they thought
they could not understand, complaining, “It’s too hard!” or, “I don’t
get it!” Julie realized that interpreting the song required basically
the same skill set as the poem, but the tools were different—
adding the component of music gave the experience elements of
familiarity, fun, and light-heartedness that the students needed.
The songs they allowed them to take risks and to feel free to share
their ideas without fear of having the “wrong” answer. Analyzing a
song that contains inferences or literary themes requires the same
level of interpretation and higher level thinking as poems and
similar types of texts, but familiarity reduces learners’ anxiety and
processing demands (Almasi & Fullerton, 2012). They are already
familiar with the words of the song, so they do not have to decode.
They know the rhythm of the song, so aspects of fluency such as
phrasing, tempo/pacing, rhythm, pitch, and stress are supported;
and because it is something they have prior knowledge of and
can relate to, they are more likely to interpret the meaning.
Because her first lesson using music went so well, Julie decided
to continue with that approach throughout the poetry unit. She
was pleased to see these fourth graders singing along with Katy
Perry to the lyrics of “Roar” as they read the words on their sheets.
She noted that many of the students who were singing rarely
volunteered to speak in class, so seeing them participate in a new
way, through song, was a valuable reminder that, as educators,
we need to constantly look for ways to involve students and
provide different ways to learn so that they will be successful. The
students already knew the lyrics by heart just from hearing it on
the radio, but using their eyes to read the words through shared
and repeated readings was a valuable reading support for them.
One of the most interesting displays of increased student
motivation Julie saw was when music was incorporated into
a writing lesson. As the culminating task of the poetry unit,
each student was required to share an original poem, choosing
from many that they had written throughout the week. Julie
suggested that one of her students, Janie (pseudonym),
write a song to perform in the poetry slam since she sings
competitively. Janie and a classmate wrote a beautiful song
with a set rhyming pattern, metaphors, similes, and imagery,