Starting out along the road to reading

Happy new year and welcome to the upcoming 2025 school year! Your important role helping your precious young charges along the road to literacy is one of the highest gravitas. To aid you in your planning, I gift you a collation of tried-and-true teaching strategies that encourage, enrich and engage young students in learning, setting them up for success in their beginning reading journey, indeed all learning at school.

What the research says

The following teaching strategies are underpinned by recent scientific research which supports the view that learning music and learning to read are highly correlated, complementary cognitive processes. Cognitive benefits include improved inhibitory control and executive brain function, which assist students to concentrate, stay focused and manage their emotions (Levitin, 2006; Jones, 2010; da Silva et al., 2021). Executive functions and other ‘soft skills’, like interpersonal and behavioural skills, are essential in harmonious learning environments and longer term, increasingly important in today’s workforce (Hansen et al., 2014).

Identified educational benefits of integrating music in early reading include improved rhythmic abilities, sound to symbol correspondence, phonemic awareness and reading prosody (Wennerstrom, 2001; Collins, 2020; Godde et al., 2020). Socially, music has the propensity to calm and engage reluctant learners, facilitate cooperative group learning, and ensure students feel comfortable and confident in the classroom (Curtis 2007; Saefudin, 2019; Debreceny, 2021). In a nutshell, focusing on music in the early reading classroom improves student learning!

Morning Circle

Morning greeting songs, performed in a welcoming circle, set the scene for a positive class climate throughout the day, and make the singing- talking, reading- writing link explicit to children. This activity occurs first thing as soon as students enter the classroom in the morning. The class begin the day in a circle, then they may sing a selection of the following songs together e.g. Circle of Friends, Good Morning friends songs (below).

As children sing the song together; the teacher passes something around, e.g. a toy microphone. When you sing, open up the door, everyone put their arms up, holding hands. If you have any visitors to the room, or any special birthday people, or class leaders for the day, they’d come in through the doors when they are opened by the class. They would say good morning and say their names. If there are parent helpers in the classroom, they are invited to join into morning circle as well. All sit, then as children receive the microphone, they contribute something orally to the circle. At the beginning of the year, it may be that children say their names and tell the class something about themselves. As the year progresses, the teacher may provide a sentence starter for children to complete orally when it is their turn, increasing in complexity, reinforcing the speaking, reading, writing link. The teacher may choose to model write some of the students sentences on a whiteboard, modelling conventions of print, sound- symbol associations, punctuation, and spelling. The class practise reading and writing the sentence together.

*Good morning friends* melody and lyrics

In this song, the class is sitting in a circle. For the first time, the teacher models how to sing this greeting song. The teacher sings, “Good mor-n-ing friends. My name is (insert teacher name) and I’m in (insert class name) at (insert school name) School”. The class then responds, “Good morning (students insert teacher name). We hope you have a won-der-ful day!”. Then, the next person in the circle sings their greeting. This is a useful greeting song for early in the school year as students are learning each other’s names. As the class get more familiar with the song, body percussion using an Orff approach, in increasingly complex rhythm patterns, maintains high student engagement and incorporate musical concepts through play. Repeated ostinato patterns can be added to the song: e.g. ,

Create rhythms patterns to accompany oral language activities

The morning greeting song, Oh, what do you think my name is? is available ABC. (1995). The New Useful Book. ABC Books, p6. Repeat the song after greeting each child individually, to make them feel special. Children to add actions and possibly instruments to keep the beat/ rhythm of the song as they sing. ABC children’s songs are readily available on Spotify playlist Spotify – Aussie Kids Songs | Australian Children's Music | ABC Kids Music.

The traditional morning greeting song, “Hey good morning, ho good morning” (class example found here) is popular in Foundation/ Kindergarten classrooms. This song is well-placed and sits well following morning calendar. Then, depending on the weather that day, students perform a specific action e.g. make a sun with your arms if sunny, pitter patter raindrops if rainy, roll arms to make a whooshing sound if windy etc. It is fun to make up your own actions with your class as it facilitates oral language and vocabulary development. Adding body percussion and simple instruments to keep the… first one beat, then two beats to a bar helps students to understand rhythm and rhyme. A class example is found here

Morning rap

I arranged this version of the popular “When I wake up in the morning” rap for morning circle. This song teaches keeping a simple rhythm, musical notation and reading a basic musical score. A range of instruments and body percussion can be used using the Orff approach for this activity. Orff is a developmental approach to teaching music combining music, movement, drama, and speech. The class responds by repeating the child’s words and actions, inserting their name. Then, move to next student in the circle, who leads the chant, selecting a time, and an alternate action. Class responds, copies action and this continues around the circle. N.B. The ch digraph could be replaced with the phoneme of the day, to reinforce the sound. Explicitly teach how each sound is made in the mouth…

An engaging example of a morning greeting song that sets the scene for active, happy learning throughout the day is the movement song, by Jeﬀrey Leask (1993), Gotta Get Up. Students listen carefully to the lyrics of the song (available in the YouTube link provided), then repeat the chorus back to the teacher, adding their own actions. It is fun to perform this song cumulatively, encouraging children to listen to and remember each action, strengthening verbal memory and the storage of phonological information in the brain. The song is a marching tune. It is regimented, with 4 crotchet beats to the bar, sung with gusto.

*Gotta Get Up* action song sets children up for a day of fun/ active learning

Responding to social situations

It’s fun to role play everyday situations children ﬁnd themselves in e.g., introducing a friend to your teacher, mum, friend, exploring/ mimicking diﬀerent voices heard on the television. Introduce self during morning circle songs with a speciﬁc action/ rhythm that the class copies (adding movement, action). Sing instructions in class, encouraging children to keep the melody and beat initiated by the teacher e.g. everybody put your books away (teacher sings then students repeat rhythm. Any rhythm pattern will do). The learning intention is getting children talking, building oral language competence e.g.,

Singing class greetings and instructions… call and response

I see and hear Days of the week “piggybacking” the tune of the Addams Family, on-screen, ubiquitously in Foundation/ Kindergarten classrooms. Although the benefits of using piggyback songs on-line cannot be denied as they are joyful, and it teaches the days of the week beautifully through drill and practice; we should always prioritise oral language development in the early reading classroom and provide every opportunity for students to focus on paying attention to the teacher in preference to looking at a screen, join into class discussions and grow their oral vocabularies, as reading floats on a sea of talk (Britton, 1983; Dwyer, 1989).

A piggyback song to learn about families

Learning about families

The above song teaches children about each other’s families suitable for morning circle, early in the school year. The tune of the above song is repeated by each child around the circle, who sings about their family e.g.: My nan and pop live with me; My mums live with me; My dad and brothers live with me… etc. In this way, students learn about each other’s families through song. They don’t feel singled out or confronted due to questions or speculation. A published overview of related, age- appropriate literature can be found appendix 1: S1-2022-Beveridge-Murray-Gillard-Appendix.pdf (nswtf.org.au)

Music is a segue to talking about feelings

Music and wellbeing

The final song I wish to share builds a positive classroom climate in which all students feel valued and cared for. It is a firm favourite! A classroom example / performance of the action song, Skinamarink, can be found here.

Singing and making music together in class increases the brain’s feel-good chemicals such as dopamine and cortisol. Singing reduces stress hormones, helping children to concentrate. It builds a sense of community in the classroom, learning together through action songs and play. Active engagement with music adds value in the early reading classroom. It provides an enjoyable social experience that improves listening skills and phonemic awareness, situating students for reading success (Newland, 2013; Del Rey, 2017; Muthivhi & Kriger, 2019). Participation in music in the early reading classroom facilitates success in students’ literacy learning journey, consecutively building a love of both reading and music.

Enjoy this special time with your students!