In contrast to the last chapter, this chapter focuses on how reading skills can be grown and worked within an actual music classroom. I enjoyed reading this chapter a lot, as the material and ideas given were easier to grasp. Since I will be teaching a music class eventually, I was able to readily pick up ideas I thought would be fantastic for my future classroom. This chapter essentially focused on different literacy skills that could and should be targeted in the music classroom through musical activities. As music educators, we have the opportunity to not only teach music skills, but language skills as well, so why not take those opportunities? Hansen, Bernstorf, and Stuber hit the nail on the head by saying, "We need to examine the parallel metacognitive and metalinguistic skills that students can acquire through good music instruction. Well-trained music educators have a unique role as they teach multiple systems of reading through the medium of music. Music teachers complement the reading curriculum" (Hansen, Bernstorf, Stuber 70). Of course, we are not supposed to be English teachers, but we have readily available opportunities to teach different language skills through music, and we should strive to do nothing less in the classroom. In the following paragraphs I will be expanding on scenario extension, sight identification, cueing systems, and then I will further expand on my discussion of fluency from my last blog post. These were a few different concepts discussed in this chapter that I considered to be great things to teach in my future classes.
"Scenario Extension" is essentially the idea that an added activity in the music can complete the learning loop that connects music and language reading and symbol interpretation (Hansen, Bernstorf, Stuber 70). The encouragement that I received from this was that as music educators, we should be looking for activities that help students to learn language along with music. There are already ways that we are subtly teaching students language skills through music, but through intentional activities, we can make sure our lessons are effective. The activity suggested in the book was to sing a song about animals and to outline the syllables on the board. A teacher would write __ __ ___ on the board if the animals in the song matched this short, short, long pattern. This visual should help the students to begin to understand the idea of syllables - what they look like in relation to how they sound. An added idea was to have the children eventually think of other animals whose names fit within the structure of the song. This challenges them to consider syllabic structure and rhythm pattern, all while challenging them to be creative and use their imagination. I really loved this idea, and I think I may use this in one of my elementary classrooms. I am a firm believer that creativity needs to be one of the biggest things children are challenged to do, so any idea that encourages creativity is one I will consider using.
So much of music is subjective, internal, and conceptual. Especially considering that young students have not been introduced to theory, there are not a lot of solid "rules" to teach elementary music students. Because of this, I feel it will be difficult for me to have strict sets of vocabulary words that I am teaching my younger students. Though I understand that vocabulary is incredibly important in the education of every student and within every subject, I fear it will be easy to get lost in simply learning music and discussing vocabulary "along the way". For example, this last semester I worked with a middle school band. As I think back on that experience, I recall that the only activity we ever did was play through the music. Every once in a while I would stop and ask, "What does p mean?" Of course, a student would give an answer and we would move on. However, I also recall that it was the same set of kids who always answered those types of questions. The authors state that a musical sight vocabulary is important, and I have already experienced how easy it can be to neglect that in a music classroom (Hansen, Bernstorf, Stuber 63). To target this issue, I will seek to put up posters, write vocabulary words on the board. Perhaps I will even require weekly vocab quizzes, even within my ensembles. I will need to make sure that each and every student has a strong musical vocabulary, and that they are able to explain vocab words, not just play them.
Cuing systems was another concept that grabbed my attention. Though I am still a little confused as to what a cueing system specifically is, I do understand that the cueing system deals with context, syntax, graphophonic, and semantic skills and students' abilities to use those properly. The authors gave the example of the song "If You're Happy and You Know It". This song is frequently used to challenge students to make up new verses, and students must use cueing systems to insert words and sentence that make sense and "fit" within the song. They do not necessarily have to exactly match pitch or use the exact same rhythmic pattern as previously used, but they must still work inside the general structure of proper pitch, time, intensity, and timbre. The authors state, "By giving students opportunities to improvise along the four major parameters (pitch, time, intensity, timbre) we are helping them understand verbal language as well as the language of music". Once again, I love this exercise, as it prompts students to be creative. However, I now understand how effective it could be in the students' understanding of language. This concept works a little deeper than simply rhyming one word with another or finding a word with the same anount of syllables as another. This exercise makes students aware of the fact that there is room for flexibility within the English language, but they still must understand and work with some of the overriding language concepts.
Finally, I will expand on my discussion of frequency from my last blog post. The authors state, "After children have some mastery over the earlier skills (phonological awaremess, phonemic awareness, sight identification, orthographic or graphophonemic awareness, and cuing systems), they will automatically push for opportunities to test their fluency. Children in a music class who think they have finally "mastered" a song will openly ask, "Can we do it faster?" This was a huge realization for me. Through my time teaching violin lessons, I have had so many students ask me that question, but I had never realized that it was them wanting to test their fluency. Even in the band that I worked with last semester, I would have some kids say, "We need to play it faster", and others who would say, "No! That's a good speed!" I never considered that this could be a very obvious indicator of which students were progressing faster than others. I can use this as a form of informal assessment. I anticipate that from now on, whenever a student says this to me, whether in an ensemble or a private lesson, I will make a mental note that this is a sign of the student progressing.
Lastly, while this last concept has more to do with students' musical skills, it does tie over to one's language skills as well. The authors state, "The more we assist students in developing "musicianship", the more we may be assisting them in language fluency as well" ((Hansen, Bernstorf, Stuber 68). As students are challenged to read and learn music faster, they are simply challenging their mental ability to decipher any type of text faster. This will overlap with their reading abilities and how fast they are able to decipher literary texts.
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