Who doesn’t love a good song? This year my students burst into song just because they can. I thought I would turn this love of music into some good. We have started using music to increase fluency. Here’s how…
1. Print out a copy of song lyrics for your students.
2. Play the song so students can hear how it sounds.
3. Read through the lyrics a couple of times without the music.
4. Add the music and have students follow along.
5. Repeat as often as you would like. (Change up the songs so students do not fully memorize them.)
We have done different things with these songs besides just singing them. I use them to teach theme, poetry (stanzas), etc. One of my favorite things to do is make a musical big book. To do this, I put 1-2 lines on a sheet of paper. Students draw an illustration based on the lyric.
I then compile them into a class book. (The above picture are some of the pages from our musical big book waiting for me to bind together.) I use my book binding machine to put them together…
