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USING MUSIC IN YOUR LITERACY CURRICULUM

Kelly Fonner
Educational & Assistive Technology Consultant
1508 Dodge Street
Lake Geneva, WI 53147
Phone: 262-893-8053
Fax: 262-249-9269
kfonner@earthlink.net>

Summary

Can the musicians of today assist you in providing motivating balanced literacy materials to your students? "Will Smith WYNN?" "Do the Backstreet Boys Write Out Loud?" Those ideas and many more will be presented throughout this presentation packed with ideas of using music, lyrics and information on the artists that produce them. If you're following the 4 block model of balanced literacy, you'll find some musically motivating ideas here to add to activities in word study, encourage writing, support reading comprehension and create interesting stories for independent reading. "Can Kid Rock Picture It?" "Does Brittany Spears IntelliTalk 2?"

Abstract

The purpose of this session is to get people excited about using content related to music in their balanced literacy curriculum. At this point in time, many K-12, CSUN attendees have been introduced to the idea of the 4 block model by presenters such as Caroline Musselwhite, Pati King-DeBaun, Karen Erickson, David Koppenhaver and others. During this session, participants will find some musically motivating ideas to add to activities in the 4 blocks of word study, writing, reading comprehension and independent reading.

Music can be a motivator for many levels of students. The types of music related ideas presented will include using music clips, musical patterning, song lyrics, music composition software, music related periodicals and books, and information on popular music artists and musical groups. The types of assistive technologies addressed during this session include talking word processors, text to symbol processors, word prediction, text readers, access products, and multi-media products.

The following is an outline of this combination of music related idea with types of technologies. These examples range across age groups and disabilities.

1. Creating Reading Materials with Song Lyrics
1. sources
1. nursery rhymes
2. children's books with music themes
3. mini-books about musical groups
4. entertainment magazines
5. lyric web sites
6. lyrics in CD jewel cases
7. sheet music with lyrics
2. technologies
1. text to speech products
2. talking books
3. text to symbol software
4. multi-media programs
2. Creating authors with music related source materials
1. ways of writing with music
1. generate motivation
2. illustrate song lyrics
3. use favorite music clips
4. creating new lyrics to recorded tunes
5. tone of music to set tone of writing
6. producing poetry
2. technologies
1. multi-media programs
2. access products
3. word prediction
4. webbing/ outlining
5. presentation programs
3. Instruction in word related skills
1. music in word study activities
1. use word rhythms in phonics
2. introduce homonyms through lyrics
3. use popular songs to increase vocabulary
4. diagramming song sentences
2. technologies
1. talking word processors
2. voice recognition
3. word processors
4. word predicition
5. webbing

Examples from commercially available products will be presented from activities created from scratch from common assistive technology tools (WYNN, Kurzweil 3000, IntelliTalk2, IntelliPics, Write Out Loud, COWriter, Discover, BuildAbility, Picture It, Pix Reader, Pix Writer, Writing with Symbols, Imagination Express, Power Point). In addition, examples will be shown from assistive technology interventionists such as Linda Burkhart, Julie Maro, Jo Meyer, Caroline Musselwhite, Patti King DeBaun, and Patti Rea. Participants will receive a music & literacy related internet and produce resource.

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