Word Sorts for General Music Classes

Abstract

ColumnJohn Lithgow, a versatile and award-winning actor of the stage, screen, and television, is also a best-selling author of children's books. Music and the Arts are pervasive topics in Lithgow's books. His first book, The Remarkable Farkle McBride (Lithgow & Payne, 2000) tells the story of a boy who discovers that his preferred musical instrument is "playing" the orchestra as its conductor. For Lithgow, the alliance of animals and song makes for fantastic confederates.

Supporting English Language Arts Standards Within the Context of Early Singing Experiences

“…Word sorts, taken from ELA instruction, provide an opportunity for students to physically manipulate and categorize words with attention to phonological qualities, roots, or meaning. As Cardany (2014) demonstrates, word sorts can enhance music instruction when children sort music words according to concept to aid in vocabulary acquisition. In the activity presented here, students categorize the rhyming phrase pairs from “My Aunt Came Back” according to whether they name places or things to practice using prepositions with the corresponding word types.…”

“…These could be large cards with a magnetic backing for displaying on the board or small pieces of paper for displaying via a document camera and LCD (liquid crystal display) projector. Cardany (2014) offers considerations for children participating in word sort activities individually or in small groups. To begin the activity, write the category headings “from places” and “with things” on the display surface.…”

A Musical Shared Book Experience for Little Excavator

“…A purpose of this column is to explore, create, and describe ways in which children’s literature—as well as other aspects of language literacy—can be employed in general music classrooms. In addition, readers will discover ready-to-use music activities as well as expand their knowledge of language literacy, such as vocabulary acquisition and polysemous words (Cardany, 2012, 2015), phonological awareness (Cardany, 2011a), reading comprehension (Cardany, 2011b), and transactional reading theory (Cardany, 2014). In this article, the author describes and employs a whole language technique (i.e., the shared book experience) in a music lesson using children’s literature, as well as singing and reading icons for music concepts of pitch and rhythm.…”