The Arts and Literacy: Part Two

Last week, we took a look at how drama and movement can be integrated with literacy.  This week, we take a closer look at music.

Music and literacy go hand in had.  The parallels between the two are amazing.  In fact, someone can work all their life to become literate in music, just as one may do so to become literate in a language.  You must learn to listen to it, read it, write, perform it and respond to it.  This is the same for language: you listen, read it, write it, speak it, and respond to it.  In essence, anyone who studies music can become a more effective language learner.

Music Listening and Reading

Let’s first consider the parallels between music listening and reading.  When someone reads, there are things they do before, during and after the experience. In fact when we teach reading, our lessons are structured around this format.

The same applies to listening to or “reading” music.  Before you listen, you must know some background about the genre, composer or piece. While you listen, you are concentrating on the experience by becoming familiar with the music as you listen to it many times. After you listen, you interpret what you have just experienced by making judgments about the music.

Knowing the background of the music we listen to can be beneficial. We can learn about the composer, the time in which he/she lived or the style of the piece. Learning about and playing some of the instruments that are used can also provide students with some good vocabulary to use later as well as using vocabulary words learned in music class.

As soon as we begin to read a story we are experiencing it. The same goes for listening. The more we listen to a piece of music, the more we remember main themes, hear the detailed layers of the instruments, anticipate familiar or favorite parts and even pick up on new surprises. Listening to good music has the same effect as reading a good story: we want to listen over and over to continue enjoying the experience.

After we have experienced a piece, we are open to interpretation. We think about and discuss what the piece means to us, making judgments about it, the instruments and even the composer. It is in this stage that integration takes place. Your objective for your students will determine what activity your students may do after they listen. You may want them to write, draw, create something, or practice their speaking skills.  This is true integration and the sky is the limit.

Writing and Composition

What better way to explore the writing process than with music?!  Musical creation, or composition, is nearly identical to the writing process that we teach our students.  Just look:

	Composing	Writing
Prewriting	Students brainstorm sounds/melodies for their composition.	Students brainstorm ideas/topics  for their writing.
Rough Draft	Students get their ideas down.	Students get their ideas down.
Revision	Students ask: What do I want to improve?	Students ask: What do I want to improve?
Editing	Students make final corrections using a checklist.	Students make final corrections using a checklist.
Publishing	Students make a final score and perform the piece for an audience.	Students make a final draft (book or otherwise) and read their piece to an audience.

Just explaining these connections between writing and composing to your students isn’t enough, though.  Going through the actual process of composing can be used to explore and reinforce the writing process.  Sometimes students need a new motivation to see things from another perspective and what better way than to change things up a bit and have them go through the same process with a different outcome?  A piece of music!

Have students write a short composition using anything from body percussion (slaps, claps and snaps) to small instruments (hand drums, cymbals and shakers).  They can compose their own Sound Symphonies using symbols to identify sounds they want all the while, they will go through the writing process from sound ideas to performance in front of their class.

Lyrics and Stories

Of course lyrics are a natural connection music has to literacy. They are authentic texts!  Composers and song writers go through their own creative writing process to come up with lyrics-poems that have meter, rhyme and tell a story or send a message.

Lyrics are poems and poems are lyrics.  When I taught 8th grade music, I created an entire unit around this reciprocal relationship between poetry and lyrics.  We started by looking at the lyrics to Led Zepplin’s The Ocean.  (I did not tell them they were lyrics to a song, just handed them the paper.)  We read it, discussed it a bit, talked about meter, rhythm and rhyme, and then I pressed play to the song.  (And as I rocked out a little, they gave me some looks, but I’m ok with that. )

The inverse to this would be to read poems to the accompaniment of music.  You can do this with so many poems.  Shel Silverstein is a favorite and honestly any kid poetry would work well due to the heavy emphasis on meter.

Of course, not all poetry is stricken with rhyme and rhythm such as that.  And so it is important to point out the flowing, musical quality that poetry has even if it is not with a strong meter.   For example, recite a haiku to sounds of nature coupled with instrumental music or visit a site that showcases poetry slams.

Singing a song is another form of storytelling. Not only is this how epic poems and stories have been passed down for thousands of years, but it continues to be a way for people to express life in seriousness and humor, reality and fantasy – much like the genres found in literature.

I know of a great music teacher who has many picture books that contain the lyrics to songs.  She uses them often as a reading teacher would use for a read aloud.  Introduces the book to her students, takes a picture walk, sometimes reads through the lyrics and then sings the song with them while turning the pages to display the wonderful illustrations.  Often the book will come with a recording of the song to play while you look, read and sing on.  There are some great examples of these on Big Universe too.

Lyrics provide another layer of music that can be shared with your students and connected to literacy through poetry and storytelling.

Other Skills Can be Honed While Listening to Music

My favorite way to integrate music into literacy instruction is through Active Listening time.  This is something I do with my students each day during snack time.  We listen to a piece of music for an entire week and throughout the week we focus on a variety of literacy skills.

• Visualization – What do you think of as you listen?  Is there a story that unfolds?  Who/what do you see in your mind?
• Inferencing – What in the music makes you see what you see?  What in the music gives you that overall feeling?
• BME – Every good piece of writing (and MUSIC ) has a beginning, middle and end.  Listen for these qualities in the music and see how they parallel stories you read and write.

Just these three things alone give us so much to discuss and listen for that our time simply flies by!

This is just scratching the surface of what you can do when you integrate music with literacy.  What are some other ways to integrate music into your literacy programs?

~EMP

Photo Credit: www.iconwallstickers.co.uk

Music to Read By

Music is a powerful tool for so many things.  It can be something we use in our schools to help motivate our students as well as set the tone for our classroom.

Listening to music is a great way to bring music into your day, but what I find from other teachers is that they don’t know where to start when it comes to picking out just the right music.  Depending on what you do and teach will affect what type of music you wish to use.

Let’s focus on reading.  Some people love reading to music, others do not.  You may want to test the waters in your classroom to see what your students prefer or ask them their opinion on the matter.

Of course you need to consider what type of reading your students may be doing.  If they are free reading for enjoyment, they may welcome music more readily than if they are reading a selection on which they will be tested.  Others may need some music in the background to help them focus in a testing situation.

Here are some options of music and sound you can consider when choosing to play music while reading.

1. Instrumental Music – If you choose music, the best type to consider is instrumental, or music without lyrics.  The words that make up lyrics can get in the way as your mind will wander between the words you read and the words you hear.

There is a multitude of instrumental music you can use from classical pieces to popular songs.  Don’t assume just any instrumental piece will do, though.  You must consider the tempo (speed) and dynamics (volume) of the piece.  Usually, a slower, peaceful piece will suit a quiet reader’s needs more so than something more intense, loud or fast.  So, stay away from rocking guitar solos and intense Beethoven symphonies.  You may search your own music collection or a variety of playlists online for titles that are collected to soothe, relax and create a peaceful atmosphere.

2. White noise is another option for sound while reading.  It doesn’t have the potential distract-ability that music does as it does not have a melody or other layers of instrumentation.  Sometimes I find that even instrumental music can be distracting for people who are attuned to music and have a good ear to listen actively.

White noise can be helpful in situations where there may be random noises outside your classroom or office that tend to break your concentration.  I work in an open concept school and white noise or a variation of it can be helpful to drown out the unpredictable noise from the hall.

3. Soundscapes are another way to create an isolated atmosphere without melodious music.  These can be anything from a soundtrack of an ocean’s crashing waves to the sounds recorded in nature to the constant sound of children playing and laughing.

4.  Silence is always a great alternative.  Although hard to come by, it is a great way to produce an area where readers can focus on reading.

Of course the objective in bringing sound (or the absence of it) to a classroom or small group of readers is to help them focus.  Each group and each individual student may need something different.  Have fun experimenting with a variety of musical genres and other sounds as well as silence and have students start to identify what may help them to read.

~EMP

photo credit

Stories in Music

When searching for great stories to share with your students, make sure music is in your list of resources.  So many songs can tell a great story!  And this is a great way to integrate Music in Our Schools Month with Literacy month all March.

There are some songs that not only capture our interest, feed our emotions and get us motivated, some have all the makings of a well told story.  This week, I want to share a playlist with you that you can use with your students to teach some of these things.  For example, these songs have a beginning, middle and end.  Their beginnings draw you in by setting a scene, introducing a character and/or grabbing your attention.  They then go on to develop the story by giving details and showing a sequence of events.  The listeners need to visualize the actions and draw inferences.  This is real literary practice!

Playlist:

Songs that Tell Stories by Elizabeth Peterson on Grooveshark

I do this type of work with my students all the time and it always amazes me to see how many students love the activities of using their reading strategies with listening to music.  It also allows me to see some struggling readers shine.  Without the words to get in the way, I can tell that they are capable of visualization and drawing conclusions.

When I ask students to listen to music, we listen to one song multiple times.  Just as you get more out of a story if you read it more than once, the same is true with music.  And listening repetitively to music reinforces the importance of reading texts again and again.  When you give students the opportunity to do it with music, they grasp that concept more readily.

For more on how to bring listening experiences into the classroom, go HERE.

Enjoy the playlist and happy listening!  I hope you are able to share these songs and stories with your students.

~EMP

Music in Our Schools

This month, as well as being Literacy Month, it is Music in Our Schools Month!  March is a great time to bring music into your classroom through listening, performing, creating it.  Of course you can also read about it, and Big Universe has some resources that you will find to be a great addition to your bookshelf.

• Music Around the World – This is a book that describes various instruments from different countries while also touching on the concept of patterns.
• Add some more math into the mix of music with Pythagoras and the Ratios as readers discover how the Greek contributed to the way in which we tune and play a variety of instruments.
• Power Chord – This chapter book is a good read for middle school students.  The main character decides to start a band (to get the girls) and ends up facing a moral dilemma.
• Why not add in some biographical reading with The Beatles Graphic Biography.  As far as I’m concerned, every kid should learn about these guys!
• For a listing of all the books in the Big Universe about music, go HERE.

Dig through your own books and those in your school or local library.  You will find lyrics or books about song, theory books and song books, composer biographies and beautiful picture books whose theme is the power of music.  Displaying a small (or large) collection of music books in your classroom is a great way to get students thinking and excited about music in their lives.

~EMP

 

 

The Connections Between Music and Reading

It has always fascinated me to think of all the connections music has with reading.  In fact, last year, I remember looking over my district’s literacy curriculum, thinking how nearly everything stated on those pages about reading and literacy could be paralleled to music study.

In my book, Inspired by Listening, I explore all the ways we can integrate music listening experiences into our teaching: sharing music with our students and then using those experiences to build community and inspire great writing.

So let’s consider music listening with reading. A while back, I wrote an article entitled “Listen Like you Read” and in it I explored the parallels of reading and active listening to music. For example, when someone reads, there are things they do before, during and after the experience. In fact when we teach reading, our lessons are structured around this format.

The same applies to listening to music. Before you listen, you must know some background about the genre, composer or piece. While you listen, you are concentrating on the experience by becoming familiar with the music as you listen to it many times. After you listen, you interpret what you have just experienced by making judgments about the music.

Knowing the background of the music we listen to can be beneficial. We can learn about the composer, the time in which he/she lived or the style of the piece. Learning about and playing some of the instruments that are used can also provide students with some good vocabulary to use later as well as using vocabulary words learned in music class.

As soon as we begin to read a story we are experiencing it. The same goes for listening. The more we listen to a piece of music, the more we remember main themes, hear the detailed layers of the instruments, anticipate familiar or favorite parts and even pick up on new surprises. Listening to good music has the same effect as reading a good story: we want to listen over and over to continue enjoying the experience.

After we have experienced a piece, we are open to interpretation. We think about and discuss what the piece means to us, making judgments about it, the instruments and even the composer. It is in this stage that integration takes place. Your objective for your students will determine what activity your students may do after they listen. You may want them to write, draw, create something, or practice their speaking skills. The sky is the limit.

So, how can this help our teaching of reading?  By making parallels between the two skills (listening and reading) students are able to understand a concept more deeply.  When I listen to music each day with my students, we take the time to really delve into a piece.  We discuss it, we listen and we discuss again.  What’s more, is that I verbalize the parallels between listening to music and reading a book or story.  I know that by making these connections, some kids seem to “get it” more.

Understanding how they (the students) listen to music is a step in the direction of understanding how they read.  And when those processes are brought to their attention, the students can practice them and get better at them.  For example, a student who listens to any popular music on the radio (especially one that seems to be repeated many times throughout the day) will  immediately think about the performer(s) as the first notes sound, enjoy the music as it plays and may even think about the song after it is done.  Even a quick, “I love that song,” counts as a reflection of one’s experience.

Music can be a motivating factor in how you get students to understand the process of reading.

For more information about how to bring musical listening experiences into your classroom, see Inspired by Listening.

~EMP

Image from http://www.krisbattles.com/Drawing.html. 

Using Music to Help Teach Visualization Strategies

Using visualization strategies while listening to music is very beneficial to students who are learning to read and write.  When students close their eyes, they can describe what they imagine when they listen to music. These experiences can be used to draw their attention to how visualization with music parallels with reading.  Some students may see abstract lines and colors, they may see a story unfold, or they may visualize the video that goes with that particular song.  Because visualization is a huge key to comprehension, practicing this skill with music can be very powerful.

Music is not necessarily a visual activity, unlike reading words on a page.  Therefore, it is easier to bring this abstract concept to students’ attention through music.  I think that’s what helped one of my students.  It had been unclear if “Sarah” was visualizing what she read.  Her comprehension was low and her written output was weak.  In class, during our Active Listening snack time, she would listen to the music and produce good insights to what was going on musically.  But more impressively, she was able to verbally express the images that she saw in her head.  In fact, she was one of the best visualizers in the class.  (Maybe because the words weren’t getting in her way?)  It was with that knowledge that I could assure Sarah’s parents and other support teachers that she was capable of visualization and was understanding what it meant to “see the story” in her head.

Drawing those parallels between the listening and reading strategy was very helpful.  I was able to remind Sarah how she used visualization with the music and that prompted her to discuss what she was seeing as she read.  Slowly but surely I saw her develop her verbalization of what she visualized as she read.

Think about how you can use the power of music visualization in your classroom.   You may be surprised at how much students can “see” in the music.

~EMP

The BME of Literacy (and Music)

If there is one thing my students learn early on in the school year, it’s the BME Rule. I have a sign in my classroom that states: “The BME Rule – All Good Writing is Following It!”

It has to do with the fact that all good pieces of literature have a beginning, a middle and an end. But in my class, students get this concept drilled into their heads as we listen to music each day during our Active Listening time. When I talk about the BME Rule, I always mention music very simply like this: “All good pieces of writing (and music!) follow the BME Rule!”

And it’s true! Music is a composition that needs to be pleasing to the human ear, just as a story, an article or a poem needs to be as well. Our brains love organization and even the most abstract piece of music will still have some B, M and E!

If you listen to any piece of music, you can find its beginning, middle and end. Sometimes the beginning may be short and the ending can be abrupt, but they are there just the same. Paralleling the BME in music to the stories, reports and poems we write can be yet another effective way to show students an important aspect of good writing.

And you can take it further too. Ask students what makes a good beginning, middle and end in a piece of music:

B – Does it grab the listener’s attention? Does it introduce anything? (instruments/character, themes, foreshadowing)
M – Does it have details? (layers of sound) Does it tell a story? (with various themes or lyrics)
E – Is it exciting/subdued/abrupt? Why and what does that do for the listener? Does the ending wrap things up? How? Does it bring back a familiar theme (ABA form) or introduce something somewhat new (coda)?

This can then be applied to your students’ writing and story creation on Big Universe as they use the writing feature on the site. Their beginning story page will not only introduce their setting and character in words but with the many images they can piece together. Their middles will contain the sequencing of details in words and pictures and their endings will need to be well thought out to make the point they want at the conclusion of their story.

Integrating all these pieces together: music, story, images and creation on Big Universe is a sure fire way to emphasize and utilize the BME Rule!

Reading Comprehension and Drum Circles

It’s no surprise to us that different children learn to read at different rates. The problem may be that we sometimes forget just what that means in the minds of our students. I was reminded of how difficult reading can be for students just last week while participating in a drumming circle.

Last week I conducted a graduate class in Learning Through the Creative Arts and on the fourth day, we brought out the drums. There were all sizes and colors. We sat in a circle and after a brief introduction, we began to play. I started with a repeated rhythm and the rest of the people joined in. But there was one woman who was hesitant to tap her drum. She stared at my hands wide-eyed. She looked around the circle as everyone else played, what seemed to her, effortlessly. Every so often she would smile nervously and tap softly on her drum.

When our drum circle came to an end, you could see her relief. And then came the verbalization of her epiphany. In those uncomfortable moments during the drumming circle she felt as if she had been placed in the shoes of her struggling readers: those who can’t decode words and have trouble comprehending what they do read. Being put in that situation where she felt like the “one who didn’t get it” was a very powerful and revealing experience for her. She, becoming very emotional about the whole experience, was thankful for the chance to be put in her students’ shoes for a moment so that she could imagine what it must feel like for them.

It brings up a good point. Struggling readers are doing just that – struggling. We do our best to help them, teach them and guide them as they learn, but we also need to remember what it truly means to struggle at something.

I may not have gone through the experience that woman did, but witnessing it and sharing it has helped me to realize how my attitude and approach to reading instruction can affect a child’s learning. I have the power to motivate my students with good book choices and differentiate for my students with appropriately leveled books. (And isn’t it wonderful how this can be done so easily on Big Universe?) But the most important thing to remember is what is going on inside the child that it learning. Learning to read and write may be uncomfortable and challenging at times (as most good things are), but it should not be frustrating.

So what ended up happening to our shy drummer? Well, after some time she became more confident and ended up leading a drum circle herself – smiling and grooving her way through. But her experience from earlier, she says, will stay with her for a long time and hopefully make her a better teacher.

Supporting English Language Learners With Songs

“There was an old lady who swallowed a fly. I don’t know why she swallowed a fly. Perhaps she’ll die”, is what my kindergarten students hear within the first ten minutes of being introduced to me and their school library. Everyone loves a song! I use this song in particular because it exposes my students to new vocabulary, reinforces grammar structures, and it’s the perfect story to teach retelling and sequencing. There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly by Simms Taback continues to be a favorite of all of my students. It’s the book and song that connects us to each other and to books. Singing to and with students builds the positive learning environment that students need in order to thrive academically and socially.

Here are a few of my favorite songs to sing with early elementary students (also available in book form):

• We’re Going On a Bear Hunt
• Itsy Bitsy Spider
• B-I-N-G-O
• Old MacDonald Had a Farm
• Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes
• If You’re Happy and You Know It Clap Your Hands
• 10 Little Monkeys Jumping On The Bed
• Where is Thumbkin
• I’m A Little Teapot
• One,Two, Buckle My Shoe
• EVERY Schoolhouse Rock song ever made…especially “Three is a Magic Number”, “Number Nine” (I really get into this one), “Conjunction Junction”, and “Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla” (Yes, I really sing ALL of the lyrics. The kids get a huge kick out of it).

Keisa Williams (aka Ms. K) is a K-5 School Librarian at Monarch Academy, a public charter school in Oakland, CA. She is certified in secondary and elementary education (MLIS and MEd) and loves collaborating with teachers and integrating technology into her library lessons. She considers herself a “Technology Diva” and “Gadget Junkie”.