Music+and+Literacy

=Music and Literacy=

Young children are fascinated by and interested in musical activities, which serves as a powerful tool in literacy instruction. Studies  suggest that music facilitates better language acquisition, reading, writing, math, and listening skills. Learning through music seems a natural and rhythmic way to learn. Children the world over begin their learning through music – lullabies, rhymes, alphabet song, etc. The  rhythmic pattern helps children to learn language and understand the differences between words – wall, fall, care, bear, etc. Integrating music into children’s everyday activities promotes literacy development.

It is widely believed that music learning, music reading, and music participation enhance academic achievement, especially reading and math (Tucker, 1981). = = =**Music and Reading**=

MicroSoft ClipArt image || Music influences reading skills. Research studies reveal that children who learn music tend to score higher on reading comprehension tests. Parallel skills in music and reading include phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, sight word identification, orthographic awareness, cueing systems awareness, and fluency (Darrow).
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In //Aural Skills at the Juncture of Research in Early Reading //, Hansen & Milligan (2012) term music as an aural/auditory art. In both music and reading, internalizing and discriminating sound is an essential process. This sensitivity to sound is known as ‘phonological awareness’. Phonological awareness includes the ability to distinguish three levels of sound structure – rhymes, syllables and phonemes (Bolduc & Fleuret, 2009). ‘The ability to understand the sounds of language, including the segmentation of words, the beginning and ending sounds of words, and the individual sounds of words, is known as phonemic awareness’ (Hansen & Milligan, 2012, pg.76). Phonological and phonemic awareness form the basis for both reading and language skills. || Singing rhymes and songs play a vital role in developing phonological and phonemic awareness. Rhyme comes easily to most children. Activities like singing songs and chants that are based in rhyme help promote phonological and phonemic awareness. Through songs and rhymes, children acquire a large vocabulary of words even before they begin reading. Often, we tend to remember these songs for the rest of our lives.


 * Research Findings**

Research suggests that there is a significant correlation between music skills and phonological awareness and reading abilities. "In a landmark study, Joyce Gromko found that kindergarten children who received four months of music instruction showed significantly greater gains in development of their phonemic-segmentation fluency when compared with children who did not receive music instruction” (Hansen & Milligan, 2012 pg. 77). A follow-up study revealed that phonemic segmentation fluency is linked to aural discrimination skills in that ‘children who could “perceive, remember, and judge for similarity the component parts of a musical pattern were also able to perceive, remember, and recite the component parts of a word’ (Hansen & Milligan, 2012, pg.77).

Justin Miller of the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, and Paula J. Schwanenflugel, professor of educational psychology and instructional technology, University of Georgia, Athens, found that reading ability is linked to pitch, loudness, tempo, and rhythm patterns of spoken language, called prosody (as cited in Hansen & Millgan, 2012).

In a meta-analysis of thirty studies that used different music activities to improve reading skills, "Jayne M. Standley found that pairing alphabet recognition with phonetic patterns, practicing word segmentation and sound blending, and increasing decoding speed” were effective strategies to enhance reading (as cited in Hansen & Millgan, 2012, pg. 78).


 * Implications for Practice**

As teachers and educators, it is our responsibility to ensure that we provide all the support we can to help young minds develop language, reading, writing, and listening abilities. To this end, practitioners have suggested a number of activities that can form part of the classroom/home activities.

The Northwest Territories Literacy Council has provided a “How To” kit that includes information on how to use music to promote literacy, a few ideas to make musical instruments and props as well as a list of resources such as books, music CDs, etc. You can find the information at:

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=**Music and Writing**=

MicroSoft ClipArt image || Music can also influence and improve children’s writing skills. A fundamental aspect to the writing process is the concept of print or print awareness. Print refers to the symbolic representation of words. Similarly, in the realm of music, symbols are used to denote different musical notes. According to the National Early Literacy Panel, 2007 young children’s understanding of the concept of print is an indicator of early literacy success.
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According to the US Department of Education, before the age of three, children scribble, which in some way represents writing, and from three to four years of age children understand that print carries a message. By age 5, they understand that print is read left to right and top to bottom and begin to write letters of the alphabet. The children’s early attempts at writing are a means to express their phonemic awareness and it also helps develop their literacy skills. ||


 * Research Findings**

Research indicates that learning programs, which combine music and literacy positively affect student’s writing skills.

Bolduc & Fleuret (2009) describe two experimental studies that demonstrate how music instruction can improve early writing skills. The first study by Standley and Hughes (1997) engaged 4-5 year old children in a 15-week music program with activities that involved word recognition, children’s literature, and spontaneous writing. Results indicated that the program promoted reading and writing skills.

Register replicated the previous study with a larger group and again the results revealed that the children’s reading and writing skills had improved.


 * Implications for Practice**

Parents and educators can help children develop their concept of print by reading to children, pointing out the text while reading and also in everyday occurrences, for instance in the newspapers, the writings on the cereal box, milk carton, etc.

In //Using Music to Support the Literacy Development of Young English Language Learners,// Paquette and Rieg (2008) provide a few methods of using music to improve children’s writing skills.


 * 1) Ask students to write new words for old songs. Students can then compare and contrast their song with the original version. Additionally, ‘listening to song parodies is also an excellent way to demonstrate how others have taken older songs and have made them originals. After teacher modeling, students will be prepared to write and to sing their unique song parodies (pg.230).
 * 2) Teachers can also make literature connections with songs to improve students’ writing skills.
 * 3) Creating song illustrations that visually represent the song is another way to promote writing skills.

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=** Music and Math **=

For years now, the general belief is that there is a deep connection between music and math. Rhythm, like math is made up of patterns.

Take the simple One Two poem.



Notice the inherent rhythm and beat in the words of the poem? When practising music too, children learn to count the beat in the melody.

Mathematical concepts are rule based, sequential and follow a logical sequence. As educators, you can choose to teach the mathematical concepts in a fun way that integrates music and the rules of mathematics. Setting the rules to a tune will help children retain the concept better. Take a look at this TeacherTube to see a fun way to teach about division. Notice how enthusiastic the students are.

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**Research Findings**


 * Neurological research has revealed that musical activities enhance higher brain functions of abstract reasoning as well as spatial and temporal conceptualization. Activities with music can generate the neural connections necessary for using important math skills” (Chalk 2000). When engaged in learning math using music, the child uses both sides of the brain – music, which is a right brain activity and math which is a left brain activity.

Grandin, Peterson, and Shaw (1998) state that music enhances spatial-temporal reasoning skills. Rauscher et al. (1997) found that music increases pattern recognizing skills.A number of studies demonstrate that students who learn to play a musical instrument perform better in math. Noted scientist Einstein is believed to have credited music for his abilities. || ||


 * Implications for Practice **

According to Edelson and Johnson (2003), ‘teachers can use music to enhance children's pleasure and understanding of difficult mathematical concepts and skills.’ They provide a selection of activities that teachers can include in their class to make the learning of mathematical concepts fun.

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Other resources include: []

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Music also affects other literacies, but for the purpose of this presentation, we have chosen to restrict ourselves to the above three literacies.