Teaching Literacy In The Music Classroom

Kids Front (Elementary) This website is a collection of well known nursery rhymes which can be used as a teaching tool for both language and music. With simple words and rhymes, they are easy for young children to remember making them an excellent way to transition speech to song. It is also common in the Orff and Kodaly music methodology to adapt these nursery rhymes to be performed on instruments and sung in solfege.

Mainly Music (Elementary) This website contains a bevy of resources from websites to booklets and even some great hands on activities. Mostly designed for the elementary classroom, this collection has everything that the beginning music teacher would need to kick start literacy through music. There are also some great resources here that focus on Orff and Kodaly methods for those teachers who may not be familiar with their methodologies.

The Inspired Classroom (Elementary/Middle) This website is more of an informational resource that provides many different ways, via links and documents, to incorporate literacy into the music classroom. This is targeted towards a wider range of students with scholarly articles and lesson ideas provided in addition to resources.

Pianimation (Elementary/Middle) This is not so much an entire website but a single activity with accompanying worksheets. In contrast to the other sites, this is a writing activity based on listening rather than through performance where students must respond to music by identifying the elements of its composition This is a great exercise that builds the music vocabulary of students whilst giving them an opportunity to practise short response writing.

Musical English Lessons (Middle/High) This site is targeted more towards older students containing a list of popular/well known songs along with descriptions as to how they can be used to create inter-disciplinary lessons. Some of the more common themes revolve around analysing lyrics for English terminology such as synonyms and metaphors. A large chunk also suggests links to Social Science through historical inspirations of protest songs and so on.

Music as a Weapon: Using Popular Culture to Combat Social Injustice This is a direct link to a scholarly article which discusses how music is often used in popular culture as a means of representing social injustice. Protest music is a prime example of this where artists used the arts to express their dissatisfaction and opinions regarding the government sending unwilling troupes off to war. However, in this context the author is highlighting how modern artists are now using it to fight back against common stereotypes and to highlight the social injustices of society.