|
Building
Early Reading Skills
Through Experiences with Rhythm Instruments
By Barbara Alexander
Children are naturally drawn to music,
rhythm, and movement. Using rhythm instruments and children’s
natural inclination to music, teachers can foster young
learners’ critical reading skills that meet the guidelines of
Reading First while teaching important musical concepts.
1.
Identifying Syllables Game: The
Leader of the Band
Before starting a session with instruments,
have children introduce themselves by tapping the syllables in
their name, as in Lin-da (two taps). The class will respond by
copying the taps and then repeating “Lin-da is the leader of
the band.” Go around the room until everyone has had a turn.
2.
Identifying Oral Rhymes
Do a shared reading of a familiar poem or
nursery rhyme. After the first reading, ask children to play
their instruments as you read rhyming words from the text.
Instruct them to stop playing when they hear a word that does
not rhyme. From the rhyme “To Market, To Market” you might
read: pig, jig, wig, dig, hog. Children should stop playing when
they hear the word hog. Afterwards, for fun, read the rhyme and
let children play to rhythm of the text. Another fun book to
accompany with music is "Miss Mary Mack" (Scholastic).
3.
Phonemic Awareness
Have children sit in a circle. Hold up a
picture word card (e.g., cat). Say the sound for each phoneme
/c/ /a/, /t/. Ask children to clap out the sounds they hear and
chant the word. Call on one child to tap her instrument the
number of claps heard (the child should beat tap-tap tap for the
word cat). Ask the other children to copy the beat. Do this
several times with the whole group using vocabulary from
recently read books or other printed materials in the room (e.g.
ant, bird, farm). As an extension, put a basket of word cards in
the listening center along with a percussion instrument for
children to work with in pairs. One child reads the word, the
other child taps out the sounds heard.
4.
Fluency, Vocabulary, and Comprehension
Read City Storm (Wright Group Publishing) or
any other book that has a good amount of onomatopoeia. Children
can dramatize the sounds by using their instruments to make
sound effects. Children may be as creative as they like in
representing the sounds. They will enjoy making sounds for words
like tap, swish, whoo, flash, boom, thump, and splash. Before
asking children to play the sounds, be sure to discuss each word
to make sure children understand its meaning in the context of
the story. Instruments that would work well with this activity
are drums, maracas, rhythm sticks, and xylophone. In this
activity, children will be able to support the fluent reading of
a story and learn how onomatopoeia is used in literature.
|
