Channels, Spring 2017

Page 38 Long • Promoting Public Interest campfire during a shared meal, by being sung over cradles and at children’s bedsides, and by being sung purely as entertainment and as a way to pass the time. These songs are already deeply ingrained in the framework of oral tradition, and many are still being passed on today in the same way. For example, very few people would ever think of teaching their child the alphabet song or “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” by looking up the sheet music corresponding to the songs and laboriously sight reading each note. Instead, parents teach these songs in the same way they learned them a generation earlier: by rote. Similarly, many parents and educators turn to songs and rhymes over books when teaching valuable literacy skills at an early age. The reason why so many childhood concepts are taught through song is because “the use of rhythm and rhyme as an educational strategy provides young children with an easily remembered and nicely structured format for literacy learning.” 6 Books are a great way for children to learn; however, there is a unique benefit to education through music. Ask any child to tell you the alphabet, and chances are that they will sing it to you instead of simply reciting the letters in order for the human brain is able to remember concepts better when more of the brain is actively engaged in learning as in music. The book The Music and Literacy Connection , published in partnership with the National Association for Music Education, explains that “all aspects of music making, composition, attentive reading, and attentive listening require a fully engaged cerebral cortex [while] emotional and memory…portions of the brain also are activated by musical experiences, [which is why] truly music is a whole-brain experience.” 7 Music engages a child’s whole brain in a way that books and worlds without rhythm and rhyme simply cannot. John Smith expounds upon the value of music as a vehicle for literacy learning, stating that “meta-analyses of arts education research studies suggest that music activities in particular are strongly associated with nonmusical curricular outcomes [and] can enhance students’ academic performance, social skills, and content learning.” 8 He goes on further to detail that “music activities can also complement a wide range of literacy learning activities…[as] singing and songwriting…can support early literacy instruction in the areas of letter names and sounds, phonemic awareness, print conventions, background knowledge, vocabulary, decoding, and writing.” 9 Music is an invaluable teaching resource as it appeals to many different parts of students’ brains. It crosses over into numerous other parts of the curriculum, and it teaches social and interpersonal skills that students will use both in and out of the classroom. One question still stands: why folk music? The value in music as an educational tool for teaching literacy is highly evident; however, I would like to suggest that there is great value in a music curriculum with a strong core of traditional folk songs and nursery rhymes (in 6 Dee Hansen, Elaine Bernstorf, and Gayle M. Stuber, The Music and Literacy Connection, (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014), 32. 7 Ibid, 221. 8 John A. Smith, "Singing and Songwriting Support Early Literacy Instruction," Reading Teacher 53, no. 8 (2000): 646. 9 Ibid.