Learning Through Music
We found an interesting and inspiring article at www.edu-cyberpg.com by Kathryn Msterson which talks about using music to help children learn. In this article, it speaks of Joan Munro - a reading specialist at Worcester Elementary School in the Methacton School District who uses music to teach reading. This way of teaching reading helped her third grade students improve reading skills. Accuracy, phrasing, and fluency were areas which progress was seen as Munro used music as a tool to teach reading.
As a NBCT – Early Childhood Generalist and veteran elementary school teacher, I have seen the interest children have for singing songs, reciting rhymes, and listening or reading rhyming books along with using music as a teaching tool. The rhythm and beat of songs and rhymes makes it fun, engaging, and pleasurable for children. Using songs to teach reading or other subject areas becomes a “different” way that draws in their interest and often times makes it easier for them to remember what they are learning.
Integrating the content into a song or rhyme adds a different dimension to a child’s learning – one that is appreciated and motivating for the learner. When using songs to teach children to read, help with math, or other subject areas it can also stimulate “right” brain learning in addition to making it fun for the child.
“Music helps lift reading off the paper – the words come alive to the kids,” Munro
A reading specialist at Worcester Elementary School in the Methacton School District, Munro said she has found that using music to teach reading has helped her students unlock the mysteries of words, sentences and paragraphs.
Her research joins a growing body of work that in recent years has linked music to math scores, reasoning skills, brain development and intelligence.
Last year, Munro conducted a research project with third graders behind in their reading levels. Teaching reading through songs improved the students’ accuracy, phrasing and fluency in reading, she said. The same way a song sticks in the memory long after facts have faded, the words connected to melodies stayed with the young readers, Munro said. “It’s almost an anchor to hold on to - students are just not thrown into an ocean of words,” she said. One lost boy in the research group came to the project with stilted, monotone reading. Then, he didn’t like reading. Now, he volunteers to read out loud, and does so with expression and phrasing. And he has joined the chorus. The language and fine arts instructors - including reading, speech, music and art - began collaborating about five years ago, music teacher Kathryn Ballein said. Ballein and Munro had been attending workshops in their respective teaching areas that presented research linking music with reading and other learning skills. They began sharing their teaching materials, and soon noticed positive results, Ballein said. The collaboration reinforced what Munro earlier suspected: that rhythm could help young students struggling to read, she said. Years before, when she taught in Norristown, she worked with a young girl who could barely read from a book, Munro said. But when the girl rapped, clapped or snapped, her reading improved greatly. “I thought, ‘Bingo! There’s something to this,’ ” Munro said. While the rhythm, phrasing and dynamics of music are helping children read better, the reading skills also may possibly improve musical learning - especially reading music - at the same time, Ballein said. The Worcester teachers now are sharing their experiences with other educators. Munro has presented her research and their findings at local and state conferences. She hopes to create a ripple effect by sharing with other teachers the benefits of music, which she calls the universal language that grabs children’s attention and keeps it. On the morning she taught the bat song, she had the rapt attention of 18 kindergartners who sat on the brightly colored alphabet rug and sang along with a tape while following in their books. After singing challenging words such as nocturnal and mammal, they got out their writing journals and each wrote a sentence about a bat and drew a picture. Back on the rug, they shared the stories. “Five years ago, I would not have thought this reading-writing connection was possible,” Munro said. “I’m convinced music was the influence.”
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