With the support of the British Columbia Literacy Council I had the pleasure of threading together the teaching of music with the teaching of literacy in a few primary classrooms this spring. I planned for each session with the question: What literacy experiences could be part of this music lesson? Listening and speaking experiences are an inextricable part of every music lesson involving singing. Right away we think of the words of the song. The singers bring meaning to these words through singing, moving, dancing, dramatizing, and game playing.
Fly away, little birdie, way up in the tree,
Come and tell me, dear birdie, tell me what did you see?
Kindergarten students eagerly took turns to be the bird. With their teacher as the tree, they flew to her as we sang the first phrase, paused, then flew back home to tell everyone what they saw. Everyone’s imaginations were engaged as they thought of things they could see from a bird’s perspective. And what a wonderful speaking opportunity! Responses varied in complexity from “a squirrel,” while others elaborated, “I saw a robin digging for worms.” Sometimes we became curious as we listened to the birdie’s response and added a probing kind of question. “What colour was the squirrel?” And the happy result was an engaged conversation. This was valuable for all learners but also provided a non-threatening way to invite the active participation of children who are learning English.
Each new song was experienced in a similar way with lots of singing, moving, and playing. Opportunities for student-to-student interaction, problem solving, and idea sharing helped the children take ownership of the song.
Charlotte Diamond’s “Each Of Us Is A Flower” was a favourite in another class. The Grade One children loved singing and moving to this song. Since this was a song that they knew well I wanted them to see their song represented visually and have a music reading experience. I used bridge notation (that is, no music notes or staff) to represent the whole song. Using non-traditional symbols like picture icons, song dots, and mapping lines may seem like pre-music reading and writing steps, but that was not my intention. In my experience children naturally feel the need to somehow represent what they know on paper and/or see it represented. All eyes were on my whiteboard marker as I made this music score for the class.
The children were immediately captivated by these symbols. It was their first time seeing a song symbolized this way and they were intrigued. Without any explanation we sang the song and tracked this non-traditional music score. “What do we sing here?” I asked, pointing to the wavy line. A student offered, “sun and rain”. Without acknowledging whether or not that was the correct answer, I responded, “Let’s try!” We sang and read the song again and discovered that the prediction was close but the wavy line also included the beginning of that phrase, “We need the sun and rain.”
Singing the phrase while tracking the wavy line made our singing flow along with feeling and musicality. It is likely that reading the song in the traditional note for note notation would not evoke the same song interpretation. The non-traditional score invites singers to see that music often follows a pattern and is organized into meaning-filled phrases and chunks:
Each of us / is a flower / growing in life’s garden.
Each of us / is a flower / we need the sun and rain.
ILA Literacy Teaching and Learning SmartBrief, May 7, 2025, linked an interview with Dr. Tim Rasinski about reading fluency. In “A Reading Expert’s Case For Rethinking Fluency”, Dr. Rasinski emphasized reading prosody. Readers who can communicate the meaning of the text expressively develop strong comprehension skills that carry over to reading silently. Phrasing is one of five strategies listed that can help develop prosody. He writes, “We want to help kids learn to read in meaningful chunks rather than word-by-word.”
Likewise when singing with children, I try my best to honour the language chunks and phrasing in each song. In “The Penny Game,” we passed a penny around the circle while singing:
There’s a penny in my hand. It will travel through the land.
Is it here? Is it there? It will travel everywhere.
The penny stops travelling at the end of the song and the person who has been hiding their eyes has to guess who has the penny. They ask, “[Name], do you have my penny?” That person responds, “Yes, I do have your penny,” or “No, I do not have your penny.” The formality of the question and response gives the children an opportunity to have a lovely conversation and to take a moment to give a classmate their undivided attention. This is a very simple yet potentially strong communication set-up.
Following their game playing time the class was presented with a non-traditional representation of the song:
The children were drawn to the symbols and wanted to figure out how to read and sing these without my help. Their teacher noticed that a student who was usually very self-conscious about his reading abilities did not have any anxiety when reading this score. How wonderful for him to feel that he could be fully involved in a reading activity alongside his peers!
Just as with reading a text prosodically, this type of music score invites the reader to sing the song musically. Rather than sing note by note, the song is organized into two longer phrases, which in turn are made up of meaning-filled chunks. When we sing a song well we pay attention to how it is organized into meaning-filled musical thoughts. The music flows along with the prosody of the language. When reading a music score, in non-traditional or traditional notation, we want to communicate the meaning of the words and the feelings evoked by both the words and music. And likewise, we want the same when reading aloud.
Experiencing the songs in this playful way provided the classes with a rich foundation for both music and literacy learning. Students sang, moved, and used their imaginations. We shared ideas and took care and time to acknowledge each other. A strong sense of community was created with each singing and playing experience and allowed for authentic conversations. Our reading experience with non-traditional symbols got us to attend to both the language and the music in the song. Now that the children have seen how a song can be represented symbolically they will want to represent their understanding of a song by making their own music maps and picture symbols. It is exciting to see that speaking, listening, reading, and writing in a music lesson not only deepen a learner’s understanding of music, but also bring life to each song experience.
References
Rasinski, T. (2025, May 7). A reading expert’s case for rethinking fluency. ILA Literacy Teaching and Learning SmartBrief. 1-5.
