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.
TEXT of the study
Introduction
Reading is a skill that is essential for successful living in today’s society. The ability to read is also central to learning. One indication of the importance that our society places on reading is indicated by how closely the public monitors the development of reading skills in our schools (Corso, M. 1997). In California, the reading abilities of children are measured semi-annually under the Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) program. The STAR program requires all students in grades 2 through 11 to be tested using a nationally normed test of basic academic skills, including reading.
The heightened awareness of the importance of reading has created an appropriate opportunity for schools and parents to look for new ways to increase student learning. The specific problem to be addressed is that many children are not learning to read at a suitable level in the second grade, which is accepted by many experts as a critical year for acquiring basic reading skills (Moses, 1999). Students who are not proficient readers by the end of second grade face continuing difficulties throughout their education. “For many children, learning to read and write during early school experiences is a pleasurable and even a thrilling experience for themselves, for their parents, and for their teachers. But for children, who do not make good progress in these early grades, learning to read is difficult and is associated with both present and future failure. Children who do not learn to read well in the first and second grades are likely to struggle with reading throughout their lives” (Moses, 1999).
There has been a great deal of research in the last decade on the benefits of music on the developing of intelligence (Lang, 1999). Much of this research has centered on the causal effects of music on the development of temporal/spatial intelligence in children (Rausher, Shaw, Levine, & Ky, 1994). Several research projects have been done relating music lessons in young children (3-7 years old) to increased reading achievement scores and academic abilities (Lang, 1999). Most of the research of this type to date, has focused on the benefits of “music lessons” which almost always means piano or other instrumental lessons (Weinberger, 1998).
Another recent stream of inquiry in current research has highlighted the value of play in children’s learning. Its value in inspiring and motivating students, and in the learning process itself has been explored (Custodero, L. 1996, Witte-Townsend, Whiting, 1999). In certain cases this research points to the enhancement of reading skills by using “play” in reading instruction, (Van der Linde, 1999; Towell, 1999).
Yet another stream of research points to the value of incorporating movement in early literacy development, (Corso, 1997; Hannaford, 1995). The value of movement and sensory integration on focus and motivation as related to reading ability in second graders has also been demonstrated, (Anderson, 1999).
Certain approaches to music education in current use do incorporate varying degrees of movement and play in their methodologies. Research showing a causal relationship between these approaches and reading skills is limited. One approach that intentionally synthesizes music, movement, and play in a language based model for learning is know as ‘Education Through Music.” Empirical evidence for the beneficial effects of this method on language development exists. The Richards Institute of San Francisco California has developed this method, also known as ETM. (Richards, 1982)
Dr. Edwin Gordon has developed another approach to music education. This approach is known as Music Learning Theory, and is based on extensive research over the last 35 years. One of the important understandings to come out of this method is what Dr. Gordon terms “audiation”. This ability to think “musically”, and not just about music is, according to Dr. Gordon, extremely important to children in developing their “inner hearing”. Dr. Gordon's research has developed warm-up activities for children, and rhythmic solfege, which is useful in highlighting and developing this ability to “audiate” in children (Gordon, 1999).
Each of these three separate areas of research in music, movement, and play, have been found to have significant value in aiding, developing, and enhancing the reading abilities of students, especially when incorporated in the first three years of elementary school.
The problem that surfaces in a review of the above literature however, is that there is little if any research into the potential benefits of combining these
three compatible elements into a unified approach designed to enhance the reading skills of elementary age school children. (Van Der Linde, 1999).
With the intent of providing an additional resource for improving reading skills in lower elementary school aged children, the purpose of this research project was to determine whether a quantifiable improvement in children’s reading abilities could be effected through the inclusion of a specialized program of music instruction. This instruction incorporates the latest research-based understandings in music, movement and play in a brain-based, multi-modal approach to learning.
Methods
Location and Population
Students from all four classes of second-graders at Jonata school were eligible for the study. These four classes were randomly divided into two groups: two classes were designated as the intervention group, and the other two classes were designated as the control group. Final inclusion into the study required that each participant complete the study (which included sitting for a Pre-Test and two Post-Tests, as described below).
Jonata School is located in the Santa Ynez Valley, approximately 40 miles north of the city of Santa Barbara, California. The study was conducted in 2001, at which time, Jonata School consisted of 657 students, 25 teachers, 6 full-time and 21 part time classified staff members, and one administrator. Information from the California Department of Education website states that the student population consisted of 63% white, 35% Hispanic and 2% "other" students." Thirty-two percent of the students at the school received Title I assistance and 20% of the students of the school were identified as English Language Learners (ELL) (http://goldmine.cde.ca.gov/).
Study Variables
Key variables that were considered in this study included age, gender, and intervention status. Elements of reading skills that were evaluated were overall scores, and the subcategories: rhyming, beginning and ending word matching; beginning, middle and ending sound matching, and blending and segmentation of three and four phonemes.
Study Design
A crossover design was utilized consisting of two groups of students, which allowed for subjects to be compared with themselves (Figure 1). Groups were randomly assigned to receive either the music, movement, and play intervention (designated MMP, see below), or no MMP intervention but instead receiving additional classroom instruction in either reading or math. The duration of the intervention was eight weeks. After a five-week “washout” period, occurring over the winter school break where both groups received no special intervention, the subjects crossed over and began another eight-week period where they were given the alternate intervention. Each of the classes met separately for 30 minutes, twice a week (Tuesday and Thursday mornings).
Reading Assessment
The Academy of Reading"® software program (AutoSkill International Inc. of Ontario, Canada) was used for both assessment of the students and for the collection of data. This software is a comprehensive, interactive, multimedia-reading program that makes extensive use of speech, sound, graphics and animation. The phonemics testing and assessment section was used for this study. It provided a detailed assessment and collection device that additionally applied analysis of the students abilities to de-code discrete categories of phonemic comprehension.
All students in this study were given computerized tests of reading skills prior to any intervention at week zero. Subsequent tests were given at week 8, and at week 21 (see Figure 1). The tests were administered by, or under the guidance of an independent examiner, i.e. the reading specialist or the reading lab supervisor. The duration of each test was approximately 50 minutes. The aforementioned computer program generated full and complete reports of all test data. This data was entered and stored on the SPSS Base 10.0 statistical software package (Chicago, IL) where it was later analyzed.
Intervention Strategy
Prior to the first intervention, the teachers of the two test-group classes prepared name tags for each child to wear to each class. The name tags were printed on a computer, in a font similar to that used in the students reading textbooks. Students wore the name tags to class during the entire 8 weeks of the study. Various activities utilized the name tags to connect reading skills to aural comprehension.
Each class began in the same way. Children were seated on the floor in a circle. Each session began with warm-up activities highlighting rhythm, pitch, and tonality (Gordon, 1996). Names were incorporated into songs, games, and activities. Patterns in names were discovered, highlighted, and reinforced. Finding the “Secret Song” followed in most sessions. This activity challenged the students to remember songs from previous lessons by short clapped or sung musical patterns.
Each session had ample time devoted to singing, playing, and enjoying the songs and games that formed the basis of the method. Each song/game activity that was used, was played, highlighted, and extended. These song/games were then used to make and follow “form books”, and “song maps”.
Song maps (Appendix B) are a simple way for students to symbolize the song for themselves, thus providing an elemental way of connecting sound to symbol. Students made a line drawing as they sang the song being studied. They then traced their own “self-motivated symbol” of the song, thus increasing their understanding of the song, and of its structure. The map made by each student was often read by each of the other students, providing much independent listening and singing and practice in “reading” symbols of the song (Richards, 1982).
“Form books” consist of teacher-made forms that are easily made on the school copy machine (Appendix A and B). The Title page has the title of the song in large letters, - and a place for the students name. Students often decorated their “title page” with drawings based on the song being studied. The next page consists of the title “Song Map” at the top, but nothing else on the page. The next page, the Beat Chart, - provides an important discrimination skill, - distinguishing the “beat”, or the pulse of the song (and of the language), from the rhythm of the song (and the words). The “Rhythm” page consists of the musically notated rhythm of the songs. Here, the warm-up activities, and the work of Dr. Edwin Gordon were extended. The children recite the words “du” for quarter notes, “du-de” for eighth notes, and “du-ta-de-ta” for sixteenth notes. The “Solfa” page uses the traditional tonal solfege (do, re, mi, fa, sol la, ti, do) to help the children securely develop the correct pitches, or “tune” of the song, while heightening their listening (and audiation) skills. The final page of the form book is the musical score of the song being studied. Emphasis is made to the students that the “score” of the music contains all of the parts of the form book that they have just completed in one place. The structure, the rhythm, the beat, and the pitches of the song as well as the words can all be identified from the musical score. It is, they are told, just another type of song map. The children then sing the song while attending to certain of these elements. Reading skills and musical development are heightened, developed, and refined during this process, which is repeated several times.
Student- and teacher-created materials were augmented by the “Tracks for Reading” curriculum of the Richards Institute (Richards, 1975). This material consists of song maps of many of the songs that were used during the intervention. These song maps have been developed, illustrated, and extended in ways that stimulate creativity, language development, rhyming skills, and vocabulary. A complete record of each intervention used in this study is included in Appendix "C".
Statistical Analysis
Numerical data were analyzed for normality by determination of means, medians, standard deviations, skewness, and kurtosis. Differences between the intervention group and the control group for nominal data (e.g. gender) were calculated using Chi-squared analysis followed by Fisher’s exact test. For numerical data, means +/- standard error (SE) were reported, and differences within groups were determined by the paired t-test test and Fisher’s exact test, after conducting Levene’s test for equality of variances. Statistical significance was determined at the α=0.05 level. All statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS Base 10.0 statistical software package (Chicago, IL).
Additional Considerations
There were several facilitating factors that contributed to the overall successful completion of this project. The first was the willingness of staff, administrators, parents and students to participate in this study. Physical factors included a separate music room, which made it possible to conduct the intervention in a dedicated space, free from noise and interruptions. There was also a computer reading lab at the school, which allowed for the assessment and data collection to be done relatively quickly and accurately, and a reading specialist. In addition, each class required a quantity of 24 by 36-inch paper, and scented markers to complete the song maps.
Results
Study Participants - From an initial total of 68 students, 55 children completed the entire study period and took all three examinations, and thus were eligible for this study. During the first intervention period, 23 children were in the group receiving MMP intervention and 32 children were in the group receiving no MMP but additional class instruction in reading or math. The total population studied had a minimum age of 6 years and a maximum age of 8 years. Distribution of the population by age is depicted in Table 1 for each of the intervention categories. Table 2 shows the distribution of gender status within each of the study groups.
Test Performance
Results of the three examinations over the course of the study period for each group are depicted in Figure 2. Table 3 depicts the total test score differences by intervention status. The mean difference for MMP intervention compared to the control intervention was 7.5 +/- 3.7 SE (95% CI 0 – 15.0), which was borderline significant (p=0.050). Table 4 depicts the test score differences after the first 8 weeks of the study, for the MMP and no MMP group. Individual subcategory results are also depicted in Table 4. During this initial 8-week period, the MMP group total score was increased from 61.0% +/- 3.6 SE to 72.1% +/- 3.1 SE, for a mean difference of 11.1% +/- 2.5 SE (95% CI 5.9-16.4), which was a statistically significant increase (p<0.0001). During the same period, the no MMP group total score increased from an initial mean score of 61.8% +/- 3.2 SE to 66.0% +/- 4.2 SE, resulting in a mean difference of 4.3% +/- 3.2 SE, which was not statistically significant (p=0.19). The largest differences between MMP group and the control group for each of the subcategories were found in the “word match beginning” (22.7% +/- 9.7 SE) and “sound match beginning” (13.7% +/- 5.7 SE) categories.
Discussion
The central finding of this study is that a twice-weekly intervention, consisting of non-instrumental music, movement, and play had a positive, quantifiable, and statistically significant effect on the reading scores of second graders receiving the intervention as compared to a control group that was followed over the same time period, but did not receive the intervention. While in the MMP (music, movement, and play) group, student scores improved 7.5 % +/- 3.8 SE compared to their scores while receiving the control intervention, and this increase achieved borderline statistical significance (p=0.050; Table 3).
Of the 10 subcategories of reading skills that were assessed, the MMP study-group showed higher scores in 8 of them as a result of the intervention during the first 8-week part of the study period. Of those 8 subcategories in the assessment that improved, 2 of them were large percentage increases, which contributed to the overall differences observed in this study (Table 4). The first of these subcategories tested the student’s ability to match words with the same initial phonetic sounds (Word Matching Beginnings). ). In this category, the MMP group improved their pre-test scores by 11.4 % +/- 7.7 SE, which resulted in a 22.7% +/- 9.8 SE above the scores of the control group (Table 4).
A possible factor in the intervention that contributed to this marked improvement in word matching of beginning sounds was the warm-up exercises that were used in the intervention. In the warm-up activities, students were asked to focus on, and imitate rhythmic non-sense syllables. These rhythms were then developed, and highlighted, and became the basis for later rhythmic activities, some of which were included in the form-books that were developed by the students. The warm-ups were fast-paced, challenging, and enjoyed by the students. The necessary attention to initial sounds to put them into rhythm could conceivably have heightened the students’ awareness of this particular phonemic skill. Another possible explanation for the dramatic improvement in this category is the “playing” with names that was done in many of the games used in the intervention. To sustain the pattern inherent in the songs, it was necessary for the students to quickly identify, process, and vocalize the sounds that made up each name, and to fit them into the rhythm of the song. A part of this activity involved the use of the name tags, which embedded the reading process in the activity. Because of the delight of the children in the playing of the games, it was possible to repeat these activities hundreds of times over the course of the intervention.
The second subcategory of assessment that showed an improvement during the first 8-week intervention was the area of sound matching of word beginnings. This area is a refinement of the students’ ability to identify beginning sounds of words (phonemes). In this category, the MMP group improved their pre-test scores by 12.7 % +/- 5.4 SE, which resulted in a 13.7% +/- 5.7 SE increase over the control group (Table 4).
It is quite possible that the warm-up activities and the games involving the use of names would have also contributed to the significant improvement in this category. Important elements of the intervention that could have also substantially affected this skill include the “discovery”, and recognition of syllables and accents in names. Many opportunities were taken during the intervention for the group to stop, and clap one person, or several persons name, recognizing syllables, accents, and patterns. The focus of these activities on highlighting, and understanding the parts of words (names in this case) is one of the probable explanations for the significant improvement in scores in this category
Another possible explanation is that part of the fabric of this intervention is the constant highlighting of words, sounds, patterns, and names, during the playing of the games and activities. In the activity of “play”, the children have a heightened psycho-perceptual system. Much of the effectiveness of this intervention is quite conceivably due to the introduction of learning material at this highly “teachable moment” in such a way as to capture the students attention, and have it become part of the “play” (Witte-Townsend, Whiting, 1999).
The present research concurs with the available literature regarding music, movement and play with regards to language development. It extends this research by showing that a synthesis of the three elements, music, movement, and play, can be an effective tool in language development as well as musical development in the early elementary school child.
Acknowledgments
Grateful appreciation is hereby given to the following individuals for their cooperation and assistance in this study. Kim Curtis, Reading Specialist; Barbara Crosby, Title I teacher and Reading Lab Specialist; Hans Lingens, Ph.D. for academic support and direction.
