Music and Fluency

Teaching Fluency through Music

                Two years ago I taught second grade in a very low socioeconomic school district; more than sixty percent of my students were receiving either free or reduced lunch. In my graduate courses I was already learning the impact of poverty on children in terms of mastering language and learning how to read and write. Children living in these impoverished areas are more likely to leave school each day only to return home to an empty house. Parents of many of my students worked two or three jobs in order to scrape by, therefore the social structure of parents reinforcing learning at home was insufficient or completely absent.

                Language acquisition happens in young children rapidly, especially in environments where children are listening to conversation and experiencing social interaction between peers and adults. In other words, the foundation of literacy begins with conversations and children talking. I was overwhelmed the year I taught second grade to find a way to help my struggling readers and writers somehow get back on track; many of my students were two to three years behind grade level. Although the task at hand seemed daunting, I was determined to find a way to help connect to my students and improve their oral reading fluency, as well as their comprehension.

                I tried many strategies to help my students with reading, such as putting students in “just right books,” having them work in guided reading groups, building up their site words through the use of flashcards and apps on the classroom iPads, and providing them with fluency passages to practice numerous times while reading it aloud to others. All of these strategies were worthy efforts; however, the one strategy that was the most effective with my students that year was building fluency through lyrics of songs.

                Reading lyrics to appropriate songs helps students to learn unknown words while the rhythm and musical cadence provide a structure for students to overcome “robot reading.” Robot reading occurs as students read in a word by word fashion that lacks expression, mood, and tone. Robot reading could form as a habitual way of reading, or as a student struggles to decode each and every word. If the reading is extremely choppy and the student reads with long pauses between words, chances are he or she is not going to comprehend the reading at all. Music then becomes a creative and fun way to help children overcome these types of struggles.

                Some tips I learned while using music to help teach oral reading fluency.  Pick out appropriate songs and think about what skill or strategy to focus on for that particular song. For example, you can find songs to teach vowel sounds such as the long or short a. Or you could work on word endings, or initial consonant blends. Whatever you choose to work on, I found it beneficial to have students read the song first before listening. While doing this you can also discuss the meaning of the words and any poetic elements or figurative language the song may contain. Once you have previewed and discussed the lyrics you can begin letting the students listen to the music and to sing along. Be careful that students are not simply just memorizing the song without understanding the words.  Sometimes, I would break down the verses of the song and assign them to different parts of the room. This was a fun challenge and my students always enjoyed determining who did the best job.

                Recently, a teacher in my school was asking me for some things she could do with a seventh grade student she is tutoring one on one with in the middle school. She was asked to focus on oral reading fluency and she was not given any program or guidance as to how to accomplish this goal. After speaking with her about the student and her needs, I realized that I knew this particular girl and had worked with her last year as in class support. I remembered that she enjoyed music and she even had her own “Beats” headphones. I recalled a project she worked on in social studies class where she had to create a song about the American Revolution. I suggested to my colleague that she try music with this student to improve fluency and she took my idea and used in the very next day. Using music lyrics to improve oral reading fluency may not be the first approach used by teachers, however I think this could be an oversight. For many students music can provide the bridge to learning how to read in a way that regular books may end up missing the mark, and it can also be a lot of fun!