Chapter three of The Music and Literacy Connection centered more on reading and the technicalities behind learning to read. The discussion focused on phonemic awareness, rhyming, fluency, and other crucial skills that younger students must learn and the different ways that music can help promote the learning of these skills. Though this chapter focused more on how a teacher in a non-music classroom could use music to help teach their students how to read, it helped me to view music in a different way. It has been easy for me to focus more on the emotional side of music and how it can help students in that way, but I had never before considered that it can be extremely helpful in one's initial reading skills. When considering how I could apply this knowledge to my future music classroom, I concluded that the information I gained in this chapter could be applied if I found myself teaching lower level elementary students. Overall, this chapter discussed how music can be used to help students in their phonological awareness, their phonemic awareness, rhyming, syllabic understanding, graphophonemic awareness, cueing-system awareness, fluency, etc. I realized that there is a whole other world that music can help teach, and I will expand on a few of the different parts of this world in the following paragraphs.
I am not an English major, so there were many terms that I had to learn for the first time while reading this chapter, one of them being "phenomes". The authors describe phenomes as the smallest part of spoken language that makes a difference in the meaning of words (Hansen, Bernstorf, & Stuber 45). They also described phonemic awareness as the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds in spoken words (Hansen, Bernstorf, & Stuber 45). Essentially, phonemic understanding is the understanding that different sounds work together to make words, and this chapter outlined some ways that music can help to build that understanding in children. Later on in the chapter, the authors gave the example of "Old MacDonald", since it is one of the most well-known songs amongst children. They explained how this can be incredibly helpful in a student's phonemic understanding, as they are working through specific animal sounds, such as "ee-i-ee-i-oh", "moo", "bah", and "neigh". They discuss that these sounds are easy for children to make, as they are simply vowels, or a vowel with an added consonant. When singing these sounds, children are not only relating sounds to images ("moo" to the image of a cow), which can also be very helpful in one's general literacy understanding, but they are learning and practicing specific sounds that make up words. This was so interesting to me. I had never considered music helping the growth of an individual in this way, and I had also never considered that a simple song such as "Old MacDonald" could have this much of an impact on a child. This was all incredibly new to me, but it made me begin to consider the usage of these simple songs with my very young music students.
Rhyming was another area of language that was discussed in relation to music. This ties into phonemic awareness, as the authors state, "Developing a sensitivity to rhyme is an important first step toward understanding the complexities of phonemic awareness" (Hansen, Bernstorf, & Stuber 46). If I am honest, I have never really considered different methods and techniques to teach elementary age students, as I have always wanted to teach older students, primarily high school. However, reading through the importance of learning rhyme helped me to come up with some fun ways to incorporate rhyme learning into my music class. One idea I had that the chapter did not necessarily touch on was to give students the opportunity to create rhymes themselves. For example, I could take a familiar tune, such as "Twinkle, Twinkle", and rewrite the words, so that there is a different story line. However, I could leave space for the students to come up with certain words at the end of each line, with the only rules being that they must be appropriate and must rhyme. Not only does this challenge students to consider what words rhyme, but it also challenges them to be creative, which is something I will be constantly striving for within every assignment in my classroom.
Another concept introduced at the end of the chapter was fluency, and this caught my attention. The authors discussed how fluency is important, because it provides a bridge between word recognition and comprehension (Hansen, Bernstorf, & Stuber 54). The idea of fluency when reading music is to encourage the students to simply continue singing even if they hit a wrong note, sing a wrong word, or must use substitute words such as "la-la-la" to keep moving forward. Hansen, Bernstof, and Stuber state that, "Rather than stopping - an interruption to fluency - the participants will finish the task and then do it again to get it right. One of the best ways to facilitate reading and fluency is when students in a music setting sight-read without stopping" (54). As with other concepts mentioned in this chapter, I had not considered how this might help a child in their reading skills. I have always considered fluency to be an important technique and have sought to teach this to different students. However, I did not consider that teaching fluency to students, especially vocal students or choirs, would be so advantageous to their reading skills. This caused me to feel the importance of teaching fluency even deeper, and I know that this will be a technique I emphasize consistently, especially in my younger music classes.
This chapter was more difficult for me for a few reasons, the first being because I am not an English major. There were many terms I had to learn and had a more difficult time comprehending. Also, this chapter dealt with singing, and I am an instrumentalist. I have always thought more along the lines of when I teach a band, orchestra, or private instrument lessons. This chapter forced me to consider techniques that I would teach not through instruments, but through singing, which is something I have not often considered. However, this chapter was extremely helpful for me. I feel as if I have a whole new set of techniques, ideas, and priorities in place for if I find myself teaching elementary music classes.
Perhaps the greatest thing I learned through reading this chapter was that I have the ability to essentially collaborate with other teachers. I never considered what I teach to parallel with other subjects. However, I learned that through music, I can help teach essential and fundamental language skills that eventually help students learn how to read. I now view teaching young music students in a whole new light, and I look forward to not only teaching them fundamental music skills, but to teaching them fundamental language skills as well.
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