Literacy Tip Tuesday – 5 Reasons to add reading skills into the music classroom?

You know that adding reading strategies to our classroom can be beneficial to our students, but you may not know WHY. It’s important to know why you should do something. I mean, you already teach ALL.THE.THINGS in your music class, and you are super busy. Plus this year is again overwhelming and just plain hard. I know how busy you are, and I know how hard you are struggling in your classroom.

That’s why today, I’m going to tell you five reasons why it’s not just important to add reading skills, but how adding these strategies will actually benefit YOU and your students!

1. Your students need your help.

• Your students are struggling. Think about everything they’ve lost in the last two years. They have been without their friends. They have been out of school and learning from home. They are behind in EVERYTHING. They are struggling with worry and anxiety. You can relate, because you are struggling too. But your students don’t have the same capacity to handle their struggles. Even your 5th graders have been on the earth for about 10 years.
• Learning to read is hard. Did you know that our brains are NOT designed to learn to read?  Written/alphabetic language was only developed around 5,000 years ago, and our brains have not evolved to handle reading. Our brains have not adapted the structures and pathways needed to learn written language, but are instead designed to learn to speak. That’s why your classroom is so valuable. The Elementary Music Classroom is designed to be a hear it first and read it later kind of place. This is the way our students naturally learn.
• You have the ability to change their world. Your class can be the one place in school where learning is not hard. You can leap over their roadblocks and change the way they think about learning. While you may not like it that your students think your class is all fun and games, this is the advantage you have over their classroom teacher. You can sneak in the learning while they aren’t looking!

2. You are already teaching ALL.THE.THINGS. Our Music Teacher lingo in many instances is exactly the same as the Reading Teacher lingo.  We use the same words and focus on the same skills already. Let’s take a look at some of the lingo that is not only the same word but also means the same thing:

Do you see the connections? It’s not just the lingo that’s the same. Music and reading are intrinsically connected, and everything you do in your classroom is already helping your students!

3. Storybook lessons are a great way to engage your students. Have you ever actually just watched your students as you are reading to them? They are at peace. They literally love to be read to…even your big ones. Reading with your students develops feelings of intimacy and well-being. Plus, you’re modeling all of the habits that good readers need.

4. Storybook lessons are fun! Let’s face it. The students already think they’re just having fun in your classroom. There is literally nothing you can do to change this. Believe me, I’ve tried. I’m not saying you shouldn’t tell your students how much they are learning, but I am saying embrace the fun. Research shows that the more fun you are having, the more you will remember and the better you will learn. You can find storybooks that have movement words, sound words, and opportunities to use dramatic play. You can add instrument play and movement. You can sing any rhyming storybook to any melody you choose. Instrument play, movement, and an active lesson automatically creates engagement.

5. Storybook lessons can teach ALL music skills. I have spent my career seeking and finding books to teach every skill. I use storybooks to teach tempo, rhythm reading, mallet skills, major and minor, movement skills, music genre, melody, vocal exploration, high and low, dynamics, and the list goes on. If a storybook has a repeating pattern, you can add a tiny melody and students can sing it, or you can teach students to play it in rhythm on an instrument. If a storybook is cumulative (characters keep getting added to the story), you can give each character a rhythm on a different instrument. Choosing the right books is a skill all its own, so that will be the focus of next week’s Literacy Tip Tuesday. In the meantime, you can find some great examples of storybook lesson plans by visiting my shop!