Fluency and Closing the Achievement Gap (musically)
Sat Sep 6, 2014 17:27
208.104.141.185
The more and more I interact with you language specialists, the more I'm realizing that my concerns and interests in helping my music students become better readers are one in the same with many of yours and other teachers. It's as if I was meant to join this class!
Music reading occurs in the same way as Language learning and literacy. Students read from left to right across the page and have to translate written symbols into sound. This is the same fluency concentration, just in a different language! I am concerned with, and would like to research strategies for helping students to READ music more quickly and more accurately. Similar to the 'benchmarking' process.
In music, students who do not have fluency skills read music slower than the norm, and are not able to recognize, interpret, nor communicate specific music symbols. Music teachers will discover many mistakes in student playing, such as wrong notes, wrong rhythms, playing without a concept of steady pulse, and literally falling behind the rest of the class in the music that is being played. Music is rated in levels of difficulty, as I'm sure certain books and stories are. I can't help but notice that the students who have trouble reading music are also identified and receive regular support in English language learning as well. It is my hope that throughout the course of this semester, I can frame a research project to identify this achievement gap of Music and Language students, and help to close the gap in both subjects. I am also interested in advocating for the arts as a worthwhile subject in school, and finding ways to solidify the validity that music and the arts is proven to support student achievement in Math and Language arts.
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Fluency and Closing the Achievement Gap (musically) - sellewc,Sat Sep 6 17:27
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I am right with you. I believe that your 2 ideas are directly tied together. I don't think we can affect one part without the other. The vocab goes with the reading level issue. Good thoughts.