Teaching Common Reading Strategies

To make the teaching of reading skills more effective, an entire school, grade level, or teaching team needs to label, teach, and reinforce the same set of reading skills with all students. Prior to teaching the skills, the entire staff needs to discuss the skills, agree on a set of labels all teachers will use, and determine how they will overtly and consciously teach those skills in their classes. The reading skills listed below are examples that could be taught and reinforced by any teacher, but they have been translated only for music and art teachers.

Examples of Reading Strategies That Can Be Supported in Music and Art

While decoding skills are obviously necessary for successful readers, teachers are working to expand their students' reading abilities by implementing research-based reading comprehension strategies. They have consciously attempted to move children from getting the word right to demonstrating understanding of the text. Cooper (1998) defines reading comprehension as constructing or assigning meaning to a text by using the clues in the text and prior knowledge. The implementation of reading comprehension strategies according to the National Association for the Education of Young Children "is a complex and multifaceted process that requires a wide variety of instructional practices (Neuman, Copple, & Bredekamp, 2000).

In fact, the very clues that help readers comprehend text are also clues that help musicians comprehend music and artists comprehend art.

Finding the Main Idea

Reading: Find critical facts and details in narrative (stories) or expository (informational) literature.

Music: Identify themes, melody, or motifs through repeated rhythmic and melodic patterns, tonal centers, etc.

Visual Art: Determine what the artist was communicating through synthesizing critical properties of the art, e.g., focal point, symmetry, balance, color, light (value).

Sequencing

Reading: Identify the beginning, middle, and end of a story.

Music: Determine the form through repetition of cadential patterns, melodic and rhythmic structure, phrase structure, climatic points.

Visual Art: Identify the organizational principles such as thematic design, symmetry, balance, unity, repetition, and value;, also, the step-by-step process of creating the art.

Summarizing

Reading: Pull together information in a meaningful way through written or oral presentations.

Music: Analyze compositional elements, discuss historical context, and create an original piece in the style of a given composer or style period.

Visual Art: Present an analysis of art through interpretation of critical properties and elements including historical, stylistic, and cultural influences.

Making Predictions

Reading: Reach conclusions and predict outcomes based on prior knowledge combined with new knowledge.

Music: Predict the effects of key changes or changes of modality, meter, style, and tempo on existing music.

Visual Art: Create multiple solutions to specific visual art problems. Change basic art elements in a work of art colors, lines, textures, space, etc. in order to change effect.

Using Imagery

Reading: Use imagination to create pictures in the mind about what has been read or studied and then communicate what is imagined.

Music: As students rehearse music, imagine elements of nature (birds soaring, a thunderstorm, etc.) or have themes represent storybook characters to transform note playing into music making.

Visual Art: Mind map ideas for a work of art. Use a Venn diagram to compare and contrast the works of different artists. Design and paint a mural that depicts local history.

Writing

Reading: Construct meaning through written expression. Re-read and write about a story or create a new story based on given story elements.

Music: Compose and arrange music. Write reflective evaluations of performances or write about music in journals for persuasive writing assignments.

Visual Art: Write about the expressive properties of art in journals and demonstrate the writing skills of voice and ideas (from 6 -Trait Analysis).

Retelling

Reading: Respond to stories by retelling, role-playing, drawing pictures, and storyboards.

Music: Listen to and describe or critique musical performances. Move to music, sight-read and re-read for precision, improvise on an existing melodic or rhythmic motif.

Visual Art: Observe, describe, and critique visual art. Write about the properties of art using proper vocabulary. Create art in the style of a famous artist.

Using QARs in Music and Art

Question-Answer-Relationships (Raphael & Wonnecott, 1985) is an inquiry technique that improves a student's ability to answer comprehension questions of varying degrees of difficulty. QARs are commonly found in Kansas school improvement plans because the procedure is also present in the state reading assessments. Again, arts educators have found this reading comprehension strategy easily transferable to their classrooms. In music, the questions can relate both to instrumental music with no text and vocal music that includes text. The four levels are described below with question starters:

Additional Ways the Arts Can Support Reading Comprehension

The Arts Provide Prior Knowledge and Reinforcement of Vocabulary. While music or art students are not always reading text, they are decoding, the breaking of the visual code of symbols into sounds (Wilson, 1982) and seeking meaning from the art at hand. The skills gained by learning to read and perform music and critically observe, create, and critique art allow a child to practice reading skills through different settings and modalities. Neuman, Copple, and Bredekamp (2000) warn that simply defining or demonstrating new words does not markedly increase vocabulary unless children actually use the words introduced. The vocabulary and content of the arts are performed and created as part of a natural learning process. These authentic experiences help to provide meaningful connections for students that could be classified as either prior knowledge or reinforcement of what will be read or what has been read.

The Arts Provide a Link between Existing Oral Language and Language to be Read. Maria (1990 ) describes language difference as one way children experience failures in reading. A language difference means that the child's oral language is different in some way, due to environmental rather than intrinsic factors, from the language he or she is learning to read (p. 27). Students with English as a second language, limited English proficiency students, and to some extent, low socio-economic status students often have less developed oral skills due to the lack of interaction with and use of English vocabulary. The vocabulary in art and music classes is rich and engaging for children because artistic elements and principles and artistic expression are common to all cultures and backgrounds. Art and music study provides context and content for limited English vocabulary students. For instance, students from all backgrounds can express an emotion such as fear, anger, or joy through art and they can interpret those emotions in an artwork or piece of music. Those interpretations can become the basis for learning to identify the main idea, summarizing, visualizing, etc.

The Arts Help Students Venture Outside Their World and Provide New Insights. When attempting to meet the needs of all learners, it is important to provide many opportunities for students to enlarge their perspectives and experiences as they learn to read. Stanford Art Professor Elliot Eisner most profoundly summarizes this thought by writing, "Children who have not learned how to see and mentally explore the various forms of arts and science will not be able to write, not because they cannot spell, but because they have nothing to say, nothing to reconstruct from sensory exploration of the environment" (Eisner, p. 471). The arts are about the senses, about exploration, and about thought.

Conclusion

Music and art teachers can label, teach, and reinforce reading strategies as part of an instructional team. They can also provide golden opportunities for students to learn rich vocabulary, see their world in new ways, expand their imaginations, communicate effectively, and read with delight and understanding. The arts can provide unique opportunities to use visual and aural messages in the teaching of reading strategies.

Cooper, D. J. (1997). Helping children construct meaning, (3rd ed.). New York: Houghton Mifflin.

Eisner, E. (1981). Mind as cultural achievement. Educational Leadership, 38(7), 466-471.

Maria, K. (1990). Reading comprehension instruction: Issues and strategies. Maryland: York Press.

Neuman, S., Copple, C., & Bredekamp, S. (2000). Learning to read and write: Developmentally appropriate practices for young children. Washington, D.C.: The National Association for the Education for Young Children.

Raphael, T. E., & Wonnacott, C. A. (1985). Heightening fourth-grade students' sensitivity to sources of information for answering questions. Reading Research Quarterly, 20, 282-296.

Wilson, R. M., & Gambrell, L. (1988). Reading comprehension in the elementary school: A teacher's practical guide. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.