Music Content Area Literacy

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  1. Introduction
    1. What is Content Area Literacy?
      1. Definition
      2. Bloom's Revised Taxonomy
    2. What is Music Content Area Literacy?
    3. Why Study This?
  2. General Language
    1. Language Literacy
    2. Language decoding
    3. Language vocabulary
  3. Reading
  4. Writing
  5. Speaking
  6. Listening
  7. Music Literacy
    1. Vocabulary
    2. Notation
    3. Listening (balance, blend, tuning, synchrony)
    4. Conducting (reading, synchrony)
  8. Music Theory Pedagogy
    1. Using language to teach music
    2. Adding the "why" to the "what"
    3. From technician to musician
  9. Dyslexia and Other Literacy Challenges
    1. Definitions
    2. Identifying
    3. Strategies

    4. Advocacy

  10. Collaboration

    1. Quid pro quo
    2. Communicating (teacher, administration, parents, students)
    3. Projects

 

 

Classroom teachers use music to make learning more engaging

Repetition, rhyming, rhythmic or melodic association

Adds to the enjoyment of the process

Music already promotes literacy

 

Name some specific examples where music is used to enhance learning

ABC Song

This Old Man

 

Six Captivating Songs that Build Phonemic Awareness

 

 

 

Make a Word Wall

Use music vocabulary to describe or analyze music

Students keep a "dictionary" of words that have been defined in class. Give periodic quizzes in which students can use their dictionaries to answer the questions.

 

 

Classroom teachers use music to make learning more engaging

Repetition, rhyming, rhythmic or melodic association

Adds to the enjoyment of the process

Music already promotes literacy

 

Name some specific examples where music is used to enhance learning

ABC Song

This Old Man

 

Six Captivating Songs that Build Phonemic Awareness

 

 

 

 

Summary

Vocabulary

active vocabulary

adaptation

alliteration

aphasia

articulation

assessment

automaticity

Blooms Taxonomy

confirmation bias

consideration

content area literacy

correlated

cueing

decode

dogmatism

dysgraphia

dyslexia

dysphasia

dyspraxia

encode

enhancement

entomology

etymology

fluency

gestalt

grapheme

hieroglyphics

lemma

literacy

morpheme

morphology

music content area literacy

music education

music literacy

music theory

music theory pedagogy

musicality

musicology

National Standards for the Arts

orthography

pacing

paltering

passive vocabulary

pedagogue

pedagogy

phoneme

phonemic awareness

phonological awareness

phishing

prosody

psychological safety

reading comprehension

redirect

rote

semantics

syntax

taxonomy

tertiary

theory

 

 Increased vocabulary

Hieroglyphic

Rune

2-minute applications

Elementary

Secondary

Private

Topics for discussion

  1. How does a person become educated?

Assignments

  1. ??

 

 

Henry (2010, p. 21) states the following: By teaching the concepts inherent in the word origin and word structure model across a decoding-spelling continuum from the early grades through at least eighth grade, and by using technology when it serves to reinforce these concepts, teachers ensure that students have strategies to decode and spell most words in the English language. This framework and continuum readily organize a large body of information for teachers and their students. Not only do students gain a better understanding of English word structure, but they also become better readers and spellers. Henry, M. K. (2010). Unlocking literacy: Effective decoding and spelling instruction (2nd ed.). Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing

  

Created and maintained by Vicky V. Johnson

 

Let's define literacy. It was once known simply as the ability to read and write. Today it's about being able to make sense of and engage in advanced reading, writing, listening, and speaking.

"Adolescents entering the adult world in the 21st century will read and write more than at any other time in human history. They will need advanced levels of literacy to perform their jobs, run their households, act as citizens, and conduct their personal lives." -- Richard Vaca, author of Content Area Reading: Literacy and Learning Across the Curriculum

Here's one way to look at it: Content is what we teach, but there is also the how, and this is where literacy instruction comes in. There are an endless number of engaging, effective strategies to get students to think about, write about, read about, and talk about the content you teach. The ultimate goal of literacy instruction is to build a student's comprehension, writing skills, and overall skills in communication.

Ask yourself, how do I mostly convey the information and knowledge to my students? Do I turn primarily to straight lecture, or teacher talk? Or, do I allow multiple opportunities for students to discover information on their own?

"Content literacy can be defined as the ability to use reading and writing for the acquisition of new content in a given discipline. Such ability includes three principal cognitive components: general literacy skills, content-specific literacy skills (such as map reading in the social studies,) and prior knowledge of content." 
(McKenna & Robinson 1990)

Content Literacy 101 http://contentliteracy101.weebly.com/what-is-content-literacy.html

What is Content Literacy?
 

"Content literacy can be defined as the ability to use reading and writing for the acquisition of new content in a given discipline. Such ability includes three principal cognitive components: general literacy skills, content-specific literacy skills (such as map reading in the social studies,) and prior knowledge of content." 
(McKenna & Robinson 1990)
 

Although the above definition is now over twenty years old, it still provides a good general description of what content literacy is in today's context. In plain terms, content literacy is the idea that learning how to read texts is not solely the English teacher's responsibility. Reading strategies should be taught in all content classes: in math class, students should learn how to read a math textbook. Here are some implications that McKenna and Robinson found based on their above definition:
 

Content literacy is not the same as content knowledge: It is the skills, not the facts
 

Teaching content automatically makes students more content literate: "Teachers enhance the ability of students to read and write about content simply by teaching it."
 

Content literacy is content specific: Just because a student is highly literate in math, does not imply that they will be highly literate in a history class
 

In content literacy, reading and writing are complementary tasks: Writing can be used before or after reading to activate background knowledge or help synthesize new information
 

Content literacy is germane to all subject areas, not just those relying heavily on printed materials: Literacy activities specific to the content are in all classrooms, including art, music, and physical education
 

Content literacy does not require content area teachers to instruct students in the mechanics of writing: "Writing to learn is not learning to write."
 

Content literacy is relative to the tasks expected of students: Literacy activities must be on the developmental level of the students
 

Content literacy has the potential to maximize content acquisition: With the proper tools, students will get more out of the text than you thought possible
 

Content Literacy Today
 

Definition: "Content area literacy is a cognitive and social practice involving the ability and desire to read, comprehend, critique and write about multiple forms of print. [These] multiple forms of print include textbooks, novels, magazines, Internet materials and other sociotechnical sign systems conveying information, emotional content, and ideas to be considered from a critical stance." (Moss 2005)

As you can see from the above, more recent definition, content literacy has exploded past the textbook, and now includes literacies that students need for day-to-day life. This means that teachers in all disciplines need to be preparing their students to interact in today's highly literate world. More about this topic is discussed on my: "Why is it Necessary?" page.

(For full bibliographic information of the articles cited, see: References Used)

Literacy Strategies

Research on reading indicates that good readers use a variety of strategies to make sense of what they read. This is often referred to as making meaning, or literacy strategies. This same research has shown that effective readers use specific strategies when reading that show they understand or comprehend what they're reading. Six such strategies are: making connections, visualizing, inferring, questioning, determining importance, and synthesizing. Let's take a closer look at how these six literacy strategies affect reading comprehension.

 

25 Strategies https://teachthought.com/literacy/25-reading-strategies-that-work-in-every-content-area/

 

Disciplinary literacy uses strategies including building background knowledge specific to the discipline, learning specialized vocabulary, deconstructing complex discipline-specific text structures, mapping graphic and mathematical representations against explanations in the text, posing discipline-specific questions, and providing evidence to support and evaluate claims.c  As researcher Timothy Shanahan argues, “Disciplinary literacy is NOT the new name for content area reading.”6 Rather, it is anchored in the disciplines with explicit instruction focused on discipline-specific cognitive strategies, language skills, and habits of practice.7 In other words, "the idea is not that content-area teachers should become reading and writing teachers, but rather that they should emphasize the reading and writing practices that are specific to their subjects, so students are encouraged to read and write like historians, mathematicians, and other subject-area experts”.8 https://www.sedl.org/insights/3-1/teaching_content_area_literacy_and_disciplinary_literacy.pdf Provide opportunities for students to use inquiry, habits of practice, and academic language.

Literacy jargon

  • accountable talk

  • think-pair-share

  • elbow partner

  • shoulder share

  • chunk and chew: teachers deliver lessons in small "chunks" giving students time to "chew" individually, with partners, or in small groups at a 10/2 ratio.

  • think time https://www.ericdigests.org/1995-1/think.htm

  • graffiti conversations: students to collect their thoughts on paper in words, images, or a combination of the two in order to make their thinking visible.

  • quick writes

  • stop and jots

  • one-minute essays

  • scaffolding

  • previewing text: Using a strategy called THIEVES, which is an acronym for title, headings, introduction, every first sentence in a paragraph, visuals and vocabulary, end-of-chapter questions, and summary, students are guided through a preview of a nonfiction text.

  • reading for a purpose

  • making predictions and connections

  • think alouds: Students are directed by a series of questions which they think about and answer aloud while reading. This process reveals how much they understand a text. As students become more adept at this technique they learn to generate their own questions to guide comprehension. http://www.adlit.org/strategies/22735/

  • graphic organizers

  • PAR Method: prepare, assist, reflect (before, during, and after reading)

  • SSQ: Stop, Summarize, Question

  • Activate Prior Knowledge

  • Word Attack Strategies

  • CCCC: critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity (approach to content instruction that cultivates the skills for 21st century literacy)

  • KWL chart: what I know, what I want to know, and what I learned (another before, during, and after reading)

 

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