Teachers learning with and from each other about the early reading and music partnership
On 21 August a group of like-minded educators came together to learn more about the Early Reading and music partnership. We focused on how, by teaching music alongside early reading in K/P-2 classrooms, student learning in both reading and music increases. We gathered at the beautiful Abbotsleigh Junior School, North Sydney.
Research focus
We began by collaboratively interrogating the research related to early reading acquisition, in particular The National Reading Panel Report (NRP, 2000 US); The Rose Report (2006, UK), and the Australian Government DoE study (2005), Teaching reading- report and recommendations. Together, this research identifies 5 widely accepted pillars of effective early reading instruction, these being phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension, commonly called the ‘Big 5’ of early reading teaching. As well, we looked at the importance of oral reading- citing the seminal PETAA text, Dwyer (1987), A Sea of Talk. We linked this background knowledge with the sixth identified pillar of effective reading instruction, oral reading, which really should be the first (Konza, 2014), as it all starts with talk.
We identified the links between reading and music, and perused trustworthy research that informs us learning to read and learning music are highly correlated, cognitive processes. Benefits of the inclusion of music in early reading in K-2 classrooms relate to keeping a beat, and rhythm. Rhythm helps organise events into logical patterns and creates sequences of sounds and silences in music. Connected to this, reading helps us identify phonemes, syllables, words and phrases from an ongoing speech stream. We move from music, to song, to speech, to developing alphabetic knowledge (grapheme-phoneme correspondences [GPCs]).
We shared popular morning greeting songs, which facilitate a positive class climate and make the singing-talking-reading and writing link explicit to children. One lovely group of teachers requested a video of the action song, ‘Gotta Get Up’ to take back to their school for their teaching team. This song reminds me of a military, regimented theme and is always enjoyed by students, fostering good aural skills and recall while at the same time ramping up energy, engagement and enthusiasm for learning.
Building literacy skills
A focus of the day was building literacy skills incorporating its three sub-elements; speaking and listening, reading and writing. We shared examples of musical activities that facilitate development in each of these areas. If a student is struggling to retain GPCs, placing them in a musical context may help them to remember. Singing words in texts helps students to build fluency. Any text can be set to a familiar tune (called piggyback songs) which aids memory retention and fluency. Teachers devised clever piggy-back chants for ‘I’m a little teapot’, then performed them for the group.
Using quality texts to teach reading and music together
We dived into texts we love with gusto and mined them for activities that address school strategic goals, based on local data. One school targeted vocabulary in the texts they chose to view. They generously share their teaching tips through a musical lens.
Exuberant teachers selected a favourite text and added actions and music to make the text ‘come alive’ for their students. They selected the text, ‘Gymnastica Fantastica’ (Stewart, 2023), a recent, popular winner of the CBCA 2024 Book of the Year: Early Childhood category in Australia. Teachers embellished the read-aloud with the addition of appropriate actions and sound effects that added meaning.
Teachers suggested ways to create soundscapes where students add instruments to accompany the reading of texts, enriching meaning and atmosphere; at the same time supporting vocabulary development and comprehension.
In the video below, a group of enthusiastic teachers view their upcoming text in their Pre/ Kinder English program through a musical lens. Their English teaching foci are building vocabulary knowledge and meaning making. The musical innovations they share are based on the delightful text 'Puffling' by Margaret Wild (2008).
The text, ‘Grandma’s Treasured Shoes’ (Vass & Huynh, 2020), a book about diaspora; is the impetus behind this magical interpretation created by the musically gifted teachers in the video below:
‘The rhythmic creation of beauty in words’ (words attributed to Edgar Allen Poe- the C19 Americal poet) is a valuable vehicle to strengthen students’ speaking and listening, reading and writing skills. We innovated on a text and added instruments to build rhythm, leaving space for students to appropriate, amend and add sound effects in their own classrooms, with a view to performance, making the text their own with a focus on storytelling, rather than read-aloud.
Resource sharing
Teachers shared resources they found useful to link early reading and music teaching in the classroom. The book series, ‘The Story Orchestra’ (below) draws on the power of narrative to familiarise students with the sounds of the instruments of the orchestra.
Screenshot "The Story Orchestra" the story orchestra - Search Shopping (bing.com)
The excellent 'Baby Einstein' book series (PI Publications, 2018) does similar. The classical music used to illustrate the age-appropriate stories and informative texts are great scaffolds to teach tricky high frequency words to students. Additionally, they are useful appropriations as piggy-back tunes to accompany read-alouds in the classroom, enriching meaning and atmosphere, at the same time introducing young learners to the timeless beauty of classical music.
Screenshot from "Feel the Music". (2018). PI Publications, p7.
The power of face-to-face collaborative teacher professional learning
While most professional learning has now moved to on-line; it was a refreshing change and a real privilege to learn with and from participating teachers in the above workshop. From my heart, I thank them for sharing their fantastic work with the wider profession, with the aim of ‘shouting from the rooftops’ the importance of the Arts in education, and in particular the high gravitas of early reading and music being taught together, to assist young learners along the road to becoming literate; and at the same time, build a lifetime love of music.
Lorri Bev 28-8-24
