Dee Hansen - The Music and Literacy Connection

The Music and Literacy Connection

The Music and Literacy Connection

Second Edition

Dee Hansen, Elaine Bernstorf, and Gayle M. Stuber

Published in partnership with

NAfME: National Association for Music Education

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD

Lanham Boulder New York London

Published in partnership with NAfME: National Association for Music Education

Published by Rowman & Littlefield

A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706

www.rowman.com

16 Carlisle Street, London W1D 3BT, United Kingdom

Copyright 2014 by Dee Hansen, Elaine Bernstorf, and Gayle M. Stuber

All rights reserved . No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Cataloging in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hansen, Dee.

The music and literacy connection / Dee Hansen, Elaine Bernstorf, and Gayle M. Stuber. Second edition.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4758-0598-7 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4758-0599-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4758-0600-7 (electronic) 1. School musicInstruction and study. 2. Interdisciplinary approach in education. 3. Reading (Primary) I. Bernstorf, Elaine D. (Elaine Denise) II. Stuber, Gayle M. III. Title.

MT930.H36 2014

780.0418dc23

2014023926

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Foreword

The publication of this book could not have been timed better, given its cutting-edge approach to important initiatives in music and literacy education. Authors Dee Hansen, Elaine Bernstorf, and Gayle M. Stuber clearly illuminate the important intersections of major national educational initiatives, among them the 2014 National Core Arts Standards, the Common Core Twenty-First-Century Skills, State Standards in English Language Arts, and Universal Design for Learning. With their varied backgrounds and wealth of experiences as leaders in elementary and general music education, special music education, curriculum, assessment, and early childhood education, these authors are uniquely qualified to apply their combined expertise to this endeavor.

The broad, inclusive definition of literacy on which this book is based is important to recognize. Literacy, as applicable to both reading and music, is not only about interpreting printed symbolsit is also about listening, writing, speaking, and understanding multimedia and visual stimuli. The expectation conveyed in this bookthat music teachers and general classroom teachers can benefit from understanding how each contributes to childrens intellectual and musical developmentis important and relevant in todays educational climate.

It is notable that the authors approach to the construction of this revised edition is consistent with the teaching principles they espouse. Theory and practice are integrated well, vignettes and instructional strategies are based on real teachers classroom experiences and successes, and material about curriculum integration is authentic and realistic. The authors even have managed to summarize a vast and complex research base with skill and clarity.

The material in this book will help music teachers, classroom teachers, reading specialists, curriculum supervisors, administrators, and preservice teachers learn to speak the same language. This will facilitate conversations among staff and at professional-development meetings about curriculum alignment and literacy-across-the-curriculum expectations. The chapter about incorporating reading strategies at the secondary-school level provides an especially valuable resource for music-education students engaged in required Reading in the Content Areas coursework, who often seem to have difficulty finding relevance to secondary-school music in that courses materials.

The Music and Literacy Connection clearly has much to offer music and general educators working in a variety of capacities to meet the diverse literacy learning needs of all students. Authors Hansen, Bernstorf, and Stuber are to be commended for such a significant and valuable contribution to the professional literature.

Wendy L. Sims

Professor and Director of Music Education, School of Music

Director of Teacher Education, College of Education

University of Missouri, Columbia

Preface

The human mind is the joiner, fitting together the disparate elements of the world to make objects, systems, sceneries. It can bridge distances from the size of an atoms nucleus to the space between galaxies, and leap over time spans of millennia as nimbly as over seconds.

Purposes of The Music and Literacy Connection

Just ask any music teacher who teaches primary-grade children. They can tell you which children might be able to read more proficiently than others by observing their musical behaviors. Among other indicators, these children have a great sense of rhythm; they can clap on the left side of their bodies, then the right without missing a beat. Their eyes focus and follow the music symbols on the board from left to right. They easily make up new endings that rhyme or follow the previous patterns of a song. They can play the correct durations and pitches of the music symbols when asked to read them.

What are these children doing in music that seems to transfer to reading skills? How do we learn? What makes us literate? How can we unite the best teaching in the reading world and the best teaching in the music world to expand and enhance the literacy of our students?

Our Rationale for Revising The Music and Literacy Connection

When MENC (now the National Association for Music Education) published The Music and Literacy Connection in 2004, the No Child Left Behind policies and procedures were being implemented in schools across the United States. The impending effect of this legislation had not yet been felt, but it was apparent that music educators would need to ready themselves for a lengthy advocacy challenge. Since that time, not only has the intent of the book as a tool for advocacy been validated, but also the idea of parallel or common literacy processes in reading and music has come into its own via the profusion of research in education and the neurosciences.

In 2014, two significant, linked events unfolded: the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts (CCSS ELA) began to be implemented across the country, and the revision of the National Core Arts Standards (NCAS), defined as measurable and attainable learning events based on artistic goals, were released. For the English Language Arts standards, notable philosophical shifts now encourage the inclusion of all curriculum areas in the reading process. With the arts listed as core technical subjects, this is an opportune time to present exciting ways to embrace literacy through the arts in the general classroom. For arts educators, it is a propitious time to demonstrate the rich and diverse social, behavioral, and cognitive learning that only the arts can provide.

While much of the content of the 2004 Music and Literacy Connection is still viable today, some significant philosophical changes are developing. The twenty-first-century skills that are part of the Common Core include Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, and Creativity across all disciplines and content. When coupled with the artistic processes Creating, Performing, Responding, and Connecting as defined by the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards (NCCAS), strong relationships result. In this revision of The Music and Literacy Connection, we hope to help music educators articulate and implement these relationships. Additionally, the construct for standards in all curricular disciplines is the Understanding by Design (UbD) Framework, cocreated by Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins. Some important components of UbD are Enduring Understandings, Essential Questions, and the backwards-design processes for curriculum and assessment development. This revision of The Music and Literacy Connection uses these models so that music educators can fully implement them in accordance with national procedures. Finally, readers will find a valuable review of pertinent neurological research that enthusiastically embraces music and the arts as a necessary and irrefutable part of human life and education. This research has dramatically broadened our view of early childhood education as well as the implications for soft skills and executive functions that are so needed in todays workforce.