Sound Stories: Using Nonverbal Sound Effects to Support English Word Learning in First‐Grade Music Classrooms

Abstract

Early vocabulary knowledge is vital for later reading comprehension and academic success. Studies have found that augmenting explicit teaching of word meanings with nonverbal visual aids, particularly pictures and gestures, assists young learners in building rich lexical representations. Research has focused on the effects of visual supports in fostering word knowledge but has not considered the effectiveness of using sound‐based supports. Working from a semiotics perspective, the authors used a music instructional strategy known as a sound story to examine the impact of using sound effects to teach words to first‐grade students. Words were taught with explicit instruction in combination with sound effects or no sound effects during music class. All sound effects were created and performed using musical instruments in the classroom. Students’ receptive and productive definitional word knowledge were assessed. The productive measure was used as a measure of depth of word knowledge. The authors found that students had deeper knowledge of words that were taught with an associated sound effect compared with words taught with no sound effect. Analysis of the types of information students provided about words showed that students gave more contextual information and gestural responses for words that were taught with sound compared with words taught with no sound. These results provide evidence that vocabulary learning can be fostered during specialist music classes using methods familiar to music educators.

Building Lexical Representations With Nonverbal Supports

“…Given children’s increased ability to interpret the intended meanings of representations by the primary grades (Nelson, 2007), nonverbal supports may be particularly effective for abstract words. Only a few of the reviewed studies measured abstract word learning (August, Artzi, Barr, & Francis, 2018; de Nooijer et al, 2013; Hadley et al, 2016; Lawson‐Adams & Dickinson, 2019a, 2019b). Several of the studies reported an increase in definitional and depth of word knowledge for abstract nouns when nonverbal supports were used, even for non‐native English speakers.…”

“…As a result, primary‐grade students experience difficulty in learning abstract words (Hadley et al, 2016) and may need additional support beyond verbal instruction regardless of their language background. There is evidence that pushing students to reflect on the semantic features of nonverbal supports may deepen word knowledge of abstract words, particularly abstract nouns (Lawson‐Adams & Dickinson, 2019a, 2019b). However, as previously discussed, more research is needed to better understand whether different modalities of nonverbal supports (e.g., gestures, pictures, sounds) can effectively support students in learning abstract words.…”

“…Lawson‐Adams and Dickinson (2019a) found that semantically related sound effects helped first graders learn both verbs and abstract nouns when used in the context of a storybook. In follow‐up analyses (Lawson‐Adams & Dickinson, 2019b), the researchers reported that students learned abstract nouns better than verbs. This suggests that the semantic component of sound effects may have helped students build higher quality lexical representations of abstract concepts; however, Lawson‐Adams and Dickinson acknowledged that learning may have also been driven by the attention‐directing attributes of the sounds.…”

The literacy-enhancing potential of singing versus spoken language in public library storytimes: A text analytics approach

“…The value of music integration in the preschool setting is clear when making comparisons of the language learning of preschoolers in classrooms where the teachers received formal music education training versus those in classrooms of teachers who had not (Lorenzo et al., 2014). A recent study found that first-grade children learned more vocabulary and had a richer depth of knowledge when word learning was paired with sound-effects (Lawson-Adams and Dickinson, 2019); the researchers hypothesized that the sound effects created using instruments not only increased attention but likewise supplied additional semantic information that facilitated learning.…”

Application of the Theory of Brainstorming in Visual Teaching of Music

“…Music class is a good way to cultivate students' aesthetic taste and cultural qualities [1]. In music teaching, educators should enrich and rationalize the teaching methods and tools, pay attention to students' overall feeling of the music class and music teaching, and enable them to fully experience the charm of music as an art form [2,3] visualization of music teaching is a psychological phenomenon of music produced based on synesthesia, and it contains a variety of music teaching methods [4]. In actual teaching process, music teachers actively attempt to give back the class to students, and apply more interesting music teaching methods to the students [5,6].…”