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GORDON ELDRIDGE: LESSONS IN LEARNING

Using Rhythm Can Help Struggling Readers

By Gordon Eldridge, TIE Columnist
21-Jan-15


Somewhere between five and 17 percent of children do not become fluent readers. Programs that combine training in instruction in phonetics with training in phonemic awareness can be effective in helping these children become more successful, but some learners still struggle even with this kind of support.
There is growing evidence that poor readers often also have difficulty perceiving rhythm. Rhythm is an integral element of language. The vowel sounds we produce when speaking are enclosed in what are called “amplitude envelopes.” When we speak, we time the rise of these envelopes so that the “perceptual center” of a syllable conforms to the rhythmic patterns of the language we are speaking.
Children with developmental dyslexia often also show impairment in their ability to perceive these amplitude envelopes. Researchers at the University of Cambridge therefore suspected that it may be possible to improve reading performance by training these underpinning abilities rather than directly training reading itself. They conducted a study where the effects of a program of rhythmic training were compared with those of a program designed to improve grapheme-phoneme recognition skills.
Nineteen six and seven-year-old children participated. Ten were assigned to the rhythmic intervention, and nine to the phonological intervention. The rhythmic intervention consisted of a variety of tasks. In each session children participated in four or five of the tasks. The tasks included:
1. Tapping a space bar in time with a metronome
2. Deciding whether two metronome tempos were the same or different
3. Deciding whether two short rhythms were the same or different
4. Mimicking a short rhythm
5. Judging the rise time of sounds
6. Clapping and marching to the rhythm of a song
7. Chanting and playing games with hand-clapping
8. Hearing a poem and answering questions about its rhythm
9. Playing the “dee-dee game” (children name famous characters or movies in response to pictures but using “dee-dees” to replace the actual syllables of the names)
The phonological intervention was a commercial, computer-assisted program where children hear words and phrases, make decisions about whether words rhyme, and match words with spellings. The program was called GraphoGame and is available at http://grapholearning.info/graphoworld.
What were the results?
• In both groups, children made significant gains on an overall reading measure.
• The improvement was comparable for the two groups.
• Participants in the rhythmic group whose rhythmic abilities were initially the poorest showed the most improvement in rhythmic awareness, suggesting that the training did indeed affect the behaviors it targeted.
• A statistical analysis showed modest support for a correlation between improvement in rhythmic skills and improvement in reading.
• Although there was no control group, GraphoGame had been shown to have significant benefits for children of a similar age in a previous study where a control group had been used.
So what?
Other research evidence points to numerous possible benefits of learning music in the early years. Bhide, Power and Goswami’s study adds yet another. Music should be an integral part of early childhood classrooms, and this study suggests some specific activities that may support children as they begin to grapple with the incredibly complex skill of learning to read.
Though the study did not focus on when this training might be most beneficial, since it focuses on skills that underpin successful reading, it seems logical that work with rhythm should begin before children are expected to start discriminating phonemes and matching them to spellings.
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Reference
Bhide, A., Power, A. and Goswami, U. (2013) “A Rhythmic Musical Intervention for Poor Readers: A Comparison of Efficacy With a Letter-Based Intervention.” Mind, Brain and Education, 7 2, pp. 113-123.
See also http://www.childrensmusicworkshop.com/advocacy/12benefits.html on the benefits of learning music.




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