The music and literacy connection

1. The threads of the literacy fabric: foundations of The Music and Literacy Connection : What is literacy? ; Creating a common vocabulary ; Auditory and visual processes and skills ; Decoding: learning musical language and about musical language ; Implications of school-reform issues ; Implications for music educators: the Common Core State Standards for English language arts and the National Core Standards for the Arts ; Exercises for professional learning

pt. I. Principle 1: Children are interactive learners. 2. Learning language through musical play : The role of play in learning ; Theories of child development that support play ; The teacher's role in play and literacy development ; Language learning through play ; The role of music in play and literacy learning ; Language literacy and music play ; The teacher's role ; Exercises for professional learning.

Pt. II. Principle 2: Music teachers are literacy teachers; classroom literacy teachers are music teachers. 3. Music in the reading environment: decoding : Enhancing reading strategies using music ; Phonological awareness ; Phonemic awareness ; Rhyming ; Sentence segmentation: words and sentences ; Awareness of syllables: syllable segmentation and blending ; Initial and final sounds: Onset rhyme, blending, and segmentation ; Phonemes: blending and segmenting individual phonemes ; Phonemic awareness and phonics instruction ; Sight identification ; Graphophonemic awareness ; Cueing-system awareness ; Fluency ; Exercises for professional learning

4. Reading in the music environment: decoding : Enhancing music and reading strategies: completing the connection loop ; Developing specific decoding skills in the music classroom ; Exercises for professional learning

5. Music in the reading environment: comprehension : Acquiring conceptual understanding ; Curricular integration ; Strategies used before reading ; Questioning strategies ; Standards addressed ; Teaching conceptually ; Exercises for professional learning

6. Reading in the music environment: comprehension : Attention ; Working memory ; Long-term memory ; Comprehending music elements: developing conceptual understanding of music graphic organizers ; Inquiry in the music classroom ; Modeling ; Building a vocabulary ; Cooperative-learning activities ; Some cooperative-learning group techniques ; Reflecting on teaching for musical understanding ; Exercises for professional learning

7. Considerations, adaptations, enhancements : Music in the reading environment ; Enhancements through media: helpful or hurtful for comprehension? ; Reading in the music environment ; Adaptations across reading and music environments ; Enhancements across reading and music environments ; Special education and English language learners ; Universal design for learning ; Differentiated instruction ; Ten applications for materials in this chapter ; Exercises for professional learning.

Pt. III. Principle 3: Literacy can be taught through multiple processes. 8. Common connections: skills and concepts for lifelong learning : Listening, viewing, and speaking: building blocks for language and literacy ; Connecting concepts with skills: LVS skills first? ; Create, critically think, communicate, collaborate ; Common Core connections with core arts ; Executive functions ; Arts education: language arts skills ; LVS skills in language arts ; LVS skills in the music classroom: listening, viewing, speaking ; Anchor standards: tooling for differentiation ; Exercises for professional learning

9. Writing in the music classroom : Writing genres ; Using verbs in writing ; The six-trait model of writing ; The six-trait model of writing for music composition ; Other writing in music class: journaling ; Forms of writing ; Writing for developmentally delayed students ; Writing for English speakers of other languages (ESOL) ; Teacher roles ; Exercises for professional learning.

Pt. IV. Principle 4: Musical training provides lifelong benefits. 10. Literacy connections for secondary students : Literacy skills at the secondary level ; Decoding ; Higher-order thinking in music at the secondary level ; Higher-order thinking and executive functioning ; Twenty-first-century skills, executive functions, and instructional strategies ; Teacher evaluation ; Exercises for professional learning

11. A summary of research supporting the benefits of music training : Early childhood: play, musical experiences, and musical development ; Emergent reading development ; Language and reading acquisition ; Brain and language development ; Working memory and transfer ; Attention ; Brain structures and functions supporting a music and literacy connection ; Memory, emotion, and learning

Exercises for professional learning

Appendixes. I. Assessments of literacy

II. SMART board applications

III. Cross-disciplinary literacy examples

IV. Analytic scoring guide for evaluating music composition.