Reading Improvement Through Music, Movement, and Play (RITMMAP):
A Crossover Study by Ron Zell and Dr. Jason Zell
Address correspondence to:
Ronald L. Zell, joyfulnote2@gmail.com,
The Joyful Note Music Education Foundation
P.O. Box 746
Buellton, Ca. 93427.
Appendix A, Intervention Log
1st intervention: The children were seated in a circle and wore the name-tags that the teachers had prepared. Initial warm-up activities were used to heighten listening and focus. The song “Here We are Together” was introduced and sung. Student’s names were inserted in the the “verse” section of the song. Students were stopped intermittently to “notice” the sounds of some of the names as they were read and clapped. The seating arrangement, was then “played” within the context of singing the song. Singing and reading each child’s name completely around the circle concluded each exchange of seats.
2nd intervention: The session was again begun with initial warm-up activities to heighten listening and focus. The song-game “The Farmer in the Dell” was then sung and played several times. At the conclusion of this activity, the students practiced making imaginary song maps on the ceiling, the floor, and each other’s back. The class then drew a song map of the “Farmer in the Dell” on large paper with scented markers. The students then traced their own song map as they again sang the song, trying to get to the end “exactly” as the song ended. They then repeated the activity, using their other hand for right/left brain activation. The session was concluded by trading maps with a neighbor, and tracing these maps, still attempting to reach the end of the song map with their fingers exactly as they got to the end of the song with their voices.
3rd intervention: Using name-tags, and the song/game, “Here we are together” the class played with seating arrangements, and names. At some point, it was “noticed” that there were several names that had patterns. At this point, students with patterns to their names were “discovered”, and arranged in a particular way, while the rest of the class was asked if they could identify the pattern. The patterns involved two-syllable names or three syllable names with the accent on the middle syllable, or the same initial or ending sounds. The students enjoyed the game, and began to find the patterns easily. The last portion of the class involved tracing (in the air) images from an overhead projector of the song maps “The Farmer in the Dell” and variations from the “Tracks for Reading” curriculum of the Richards Institute. (Richards 1975). The class then learned and played the song/game, “Oats Peas, Beans and Barley” (Appendix C).
4th intervention: The class once again began with the warm-up activities while the children were seated in a circle. This was followed by the children attempting to identify a “secret song”. This activity involves the instructor clapping the rhythm, or “signing” a phrase of a song that has been previously learned to help build inner hearing, memory, and audiation skills. The song “Skip to my Loo” was then introduced. After a couple of times singing it together, the words were changed to “round & round & round we go”. The class was then asked to make up circular motions in conjunction with singing of the word “round”. They were then asked to substitute their motion for the word “round” as they sang the rest of the song out loud. They were then challenged to make additional motions on the word “round”. The students were then paired with a partner, and challenged to find ways to make circles with parts of their bodies “together”. Time was then taken at the end of the class to observe the “creations” of each of the pairs of students.
5th intervention: The session was started with warm-up activities. These were extended to include “Kodaly” hand and arm signals for various pitches (do, re, mi, & so). A secret song was identified by the students. A “secret song” is a song from a previous weeks activity that is clapped or “signed” by the instructor (using Kodaly hand signs). This tune was then used to play the game - “Hi..(a students name)..I see you” sung to the tune of “Skip to my Loo”. In this game, three students are identified, skip with the instructor, and are they required to respond to an auditory prompt to return to their seats at a precise moment in the song. After several random “plays”, the children were picked according to some pattern that frequently included similarities in there names. (For example, all three names ended in a “y” sound. All three had a long “a” in their name. All three had 2 syllables, etc.) The class was challenged to identify the patterns. At the conclusion of this activity, form books for the song “round and round” were passed out. During the remainder of the class, all parts of the form book were completed.
6th intervention: Warm-up and focusing activities, included rhythmic solfege, Kodaly hand signals, and the “secret song” “Here we are together”. The song/game - Oats-Peas_Beans and Barley was played for several minutes. Song/maps were then drawn, traced, exchanged, and returned. The students were then asked to sing and trace the song again, placing a check on their own map where the word “peas” occurred. After checking to see if they were right, they were instructed to write out the word “peas” by their check mark. The above procedure was repeated for the words “barley”, and “grow” (Appendix C)
7th intervention: Warm-up and highlighting activities started this session. A new song/game, “Sally go Round the Sun” was introduced. Almost the entire period was spent learning, playing, and enjoying the new game. Highlighting activities included connecting the words of the song to specific actions in the game as they were being sung and played. Attention was also drawn to the temporal/spatial activity of returning to each persons starting spot exactly as the last word of the song was sung.
8th intervention: Warm-up and focus activities again started the session. Name-tags continue to be used. The class played “Sally goes Round the sun” several times, then mapped it. After the maps had been drawn, traced, and exchanged, - the class walked around the circle while singing the song, - observing all the song maps. After returning to their own map, key phrases in the song were located and written on the map as the class continued to expand their reading, writing, and musical skills. For this song, the students checked where the word “sun” occurred on their map. Then the word was spelled out. The next challenge was to find where the word “moon” occurred on each song map. Finally, - students found, marked, and spelled out where “Boom” occurred. Children were asked if anyone noticed a pattern in any of the words that they had spelled on their song-maps. Some of the children noticed that “moon” and “boom” had the same sound, and had the letters “oo” in the middle. Other children noticed from this, that they had misspelled the word “moon” and corrected it.
9th intervention: The session was again started with warm-up and focusing activities. “Oats Peas Beans”, and “Sally go Round the Sun” were revisited, and played and sung for several minutes. “Tracks for Reading” material for “The Farmer in the Dell,” was then used, and the children traced the song maps with their fingers as they sang the song. At the end of the session, blank copies of the song map for “Farmer in the Dell” were passed out. The class practiced making up songs that would fit the new song maps, and would have rhyming words in the same place, etc. They then went out with the encouragement to try and make up their own song for next time, using the blank song-maps.
10th intervention: The focusing activities included “I’m thinking of a Friend”, a song that uses clapping to indicate the name of one of the children in the circle. The students then tried to guess the name from those that have the corresponding accents and syllables in their name. The class then learned and played the game “Punchenella”. The remainder of the class was then spent mapping the song, trading maps, and extending, and highlighting the learning. The original song-maps that were created as a result of the previous class were turned in, and observed.
11th intervention: The class began by singing “Down by the Bay”. Much opportunity was given to the students for making up rhymes for ending words. the class then sang “Old MacDonald” using different words, e.g. Old MacDonald had a Form... and on this farm he had some chocolate, e-i-e-i-o. - with a Ch ch here, and a ch ch there.. Several familiar songs were then sung, and the phonetic possibilities of many of them were incorporated into the class.
12th intervention: After warm-up activities, the class sang and played “Sally goes Round the Sun. At the conclusion of this, the “Tracks for Reading” literature for this song was displayed, and the class traced and followed the song maps for the multiple new rhymes. Again the students were given line-only song-maps of it to take with them and create their own songs/rhymes for next time.
13th intervention: The class reviewed games and materials from previous sessions. A noticeable change in the song-maps is theat they have become much more “fluid”. They have become less “random” and much less erratic then some of them were initially.
14th intervention: The focusing activities for this session included the song-game “Hi.... I see you”. The “secret song” was “Oats Peas Beans”. After it was identified, the class played the game for about 10 minutes. A form-book for “Sally go round the Sun” was completed. Many of the students made observations, or asked questions that indicated a significant understanding of the song and of the instructional materials was taking place. The “Tracks for Reading” material for Oats, Peas, Beans was then utilized, following each of the new set of words with the melody line of the music.
15th intervention: The class began with the rhythm and tonal warm-up exercises, which were followed by the Kodaly hand/arm signals. After playing with them for some time, - the class imitated, then sang the song “Hot Cross Buns”. After more play with the song to “entrain” it, the class then made song maps of it. Again noticeable was the fact that the song maps are much more symmetrical and fluid, and the students have become adept at tracking their maps concurrently with the singing of the songs. After the song-maps were completed, the class looked at, sung, and followed the “Tracks for Reading” Song maps for “Punchenella”.
16th intervention: This session was spent reviewing the songs and games that had been learned. No attempt was made to pre-select the material for the class. The students were allowed to choose which songs and activities they wanted to do, and several “plays” of each of them was allowed to occur. Although almost all of the songs that had been learned were chosen by several of the students, the favorites seemed to have been, “The Farmer in the Dell”, Sally Go Round the Sun”, “Punchenella”, and “Oats, Peas, Beans and Barley”. The class was concluded with each student receiving a “high-five” from the instructor, and being thanked for their participation and cooperation.
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Appendix B, Form Book, Pg. 1
Form Book for
Here We Are Together
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Appendix B, Form Book, Pg. 2
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Appendix B, Form Book, Pg.3
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Appendix B, Form Book, Pg.4
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Appendix B, Form Book, Pg.5
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Appendix B, Form Book, Pg.6
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Appendix C, Annotated Song Map
