Fluency Training in Second Grade General Music Classes Melody Kneezel University of Florida

What Is Fluency? AccuracyProsody Vaura (2008)

Why Improve Fluency Scores? Lack of speed hinders standardized test scores Reading and other subjects Vaura (2008)

What’s Music Got to Do with It? Music teachers often expected to contribute to better test scores Possibility of improving fluency scores by teaching children to think about reading musically Gromko (1985)

Music and Reading Skills Music and reading require similar aural skills (Barwick, Valentine, West, & Wilding, 1989 & Gregory & Lamb, 1993) Rhythmic abilities are related to reading skills (Douglas & Williatts, 1994) Students who study music have higher standardized test scores (Butzlaff, 2000)

Music and Fluency Phonemic awareness, the ability to organize sounds within words, is related to music instruction (Gromko, 1985) Music requires the same basic auditory processing skills as fluency (Conrad & Tsang, 2011) Bryant (2012) found a connection between recognizing phonetic sections of real words and music instruction

Music Methods and Reading Skills Kennedy (2007) found no correlation between Orff- Schulwerk and improvement of comprehension skills Leguizamon (2010) found a connection between Kodaly- based music instruction and fluency skills

Need Lack of evidence of causal relationship between music instruction and fluency skills Need to determine the methods of music instruction currently implemented that may influence fluency scores

Purpose of the Study To examine the methods for improving reading fluency skills through music instruction that are currently being implemented by second grade general music teachers

Research Questions Do second grade general music teachers actively pursue teaching reading fluency skills in their music classrooms? Have any music instruction methods improved the fluency skills of second grade students? Are there specific methods being implemented that have proven more effective than others?

Method QuantitativeQuestionnaire

Participants nd grade general music teachers in Illinois Low socioeconomic status schools Consideration of age, years of experience, and gender

Procedures Obtain consent Distribute questionnaire in February

Data Questionnaire contains three sections Current teaching of reading fluency skills in the music classroom Method(s) of music instruction Demographic information

Data Analysis Collect results Analyze descriptive statistics and correlation MeanMedianMode Standard deviation Correlation coefficients