4 Activities for Music and Reading Integration

While reading instruction is sometimes mandated into elementary music classes in ways that don’t necessarily add to the musical learning, true interdisciplinary collaboration occurs when learning activities benefit both disciplines of study in unique ways.

Here are four specific reading and music integrations with clear benefits for reading and music learning. These activities can also serve as templates for more general music and reading collaborations.

1. Beatboxing and Phonemic Awareness

This approach works well for kindergarten and first grade or as remedial phonics instruction. Students beatbox simple rhythms using typical letter representations, as I demonstrate in this example in my classroom. Often, I divide students into small groups and rotate them around tables to read sets of rhythms. The key is using rhythms to engage students in isolating specific letter sounds (phonemes).

The benefits for reading: When students are learning letter sounds (phonemes) and letter/sound representation, repetition is key. These exercises keep the repetition fresh and interesting. These rhythm patterns also force students to isolate the phonemes, which is critical when blending phonemes to read words.

The benefits for music: This activity moves students beyond clapping rhythms into recognizing that there is another component to reading music. Typically, students recognize pitch, but notation can also indicate different tones or instruments. Students are also introduced to a new way of music making that can evolve to high-level performances. The rhythm seen in row B is the same “boots and cats” pattern that is generally the beginning of beatboxing instruction.

2. Lyric Dictations and Fluency

For students in third grade and up, lyric dictations consist of written-out lyrics—with words or phrases missing—for students to fill in as they listen. In this activity, students fill in missing words from a song about endangered animals. Multiple listening sessions are often needed for students to decipher the missing words and/or phrases. The key to this activity is that students are actively listening to a text.

The benefits for reading: Repetitive reading is a common strategy for fluency. As students are listening, they are also reading, making predictions about what the missing words might be, and then confirming those predictions. Inventive spelling can be used for the missing words, or a word bank could be provided. This can also be combined with questions about the song to build comprehension and/or vocabulary.

The benefits for music: While music notation is an important part of music literacy, aural learning has always been a primary way that musicians learn. Listening is an important musical skill. A lyric dictation provides an opportunity to focus this listening. In addition to learning lyrics, students hear musical nuances that may not be indicated in standard notation.

3. Choral Singing and Comprehension

Students at any grade level can work in small groups to paraphrase lines or stanzas of lyrics in their own words. This activity can also be useful when a song is in a language that students aren’t fluent in yet. The word-by-word translation of a song will often be lacking typical English syntax, but the key to this activity is having students talk about what the lyrics mean. Students can do a small group activity with the literal translations. My second-grade students have been singing a Brazilian song in Portuguese and put in their own words in a way that would flow more naturally.

The benefits for reading: Comprehension—understanding the author’s intent and meaning—is a crucial reading skill. Considering tempo, tonality, style, accompaniment, and cultural and historical backgrounds creates multiple layers of comprehension for students to explore.

The benefits for music: When students understand what they’re singing about, it’s easier for them to sing with expression. A lot of technical interpretation depends on the meaning of the words being sung. Understanding metaphor, sarcasm, and other figures of speech plays an important role in this. A deep understanding of a song’s meaning can also give students increased motivation for their performances.

4. Hip-Hop Rhyming and Reading With Expression

This activity works well for students in fourth and fifth grades. Hip-hop artists (and listeners to hip-hop) understand the power of different emphasis and rhythmic patterns. MCs (rappers) will often experiment with different ways to say the same text for maximum impact. Learning about artists who do this well is a great way for students to learn what it means to read with expression. The key to this is students exploring how to perform phrases in different ways. This can be effective with existing hip-hop songs, other rhymes, or lines that students write themselves. (Note that using dots to show the downbeats in hip-hop music is a common MC technique.)

The benefits for reading: Reading with expression and flow can be hard to define. These exercises break one part of expressive reading into a technical skill. Speaking with very specific rhythms is also a technique that can help students who may experience challenges with stuttering.

The benefits for music: This is a rhythmic improvisation activity. Even if MCing is not an end goal for your music students, listening for the downbeat and experimenting with rhythmic emphasis builds rhythmic vocabulary and improvisation skills that can be applied to any instrument. Just as math is already embedded into physical education, language is an integral part of so much music making that music teachers are often teaching and reinforcing reading skills when they may not even realize it.