Musical Monday VIII: Write

Happy Musical Monday!  This is week four of digging into Every Child Ready to Read (ECRR) early literacy skills and how Education Through Music (ETM) can help build those skills.  In my last post, I discussed the early literacy skill of talking.  Today I’m going to talk about writing.

Past Musical Monday Posts:
Education Through Music
The Song Experience Game
Early Literacy in ETM
Every Child Ready to Read and ETM
Sing
Play
Talk

​I am going to slap a disclaimer on today’s post.  I am skimming the surface/semi-fast-forwarding things because I would like for you to have an idea of what is possible for your storytimes should you chose to join in the study of ETM.

Refrigerator Art

​For young children, making self-made symbols (i.e., “scribble/refrigerator art”) is the first step in the process of learning how to write.  The symbols that young children make are pretty fluid.  One day the “scribble” can represent Doug, the dog and the next day the “scribble” can represent a superhero platypus eating a can of beans.  

In ETM, song mapping allows children to make their own self-made symbol to represent an SEG.  For song mapping to be beneficial in the development of pre-writing skills, it is crucial that children have internalized the SEG before mapping.  There are a few ways to tell if a child has internalized the song: they can sing and play the song on their own, they begin to play with the language of the song, or they can identify the song when presented with a series of movements, pictures, or clapped rhythms that represent the song.  

An excellent example of internalization is the SEG that I like to use in my Tales for 2’s and 3’s storytime.  I have been using Come Along and Wave with Me for the whole storytime cycle (spring and fall - so about 24 weeks).  We have been doing the same movements in the same order.  If I were to walk into my Tales storytime next week and say “guess my song” then proceeded to do the motions of our hello song - wave, hug, twist, stretch, and wiggle without singing any of the words, the children who have been coming to my storytime every week will likely know that it is our hello song.

Chunking

​Let’s pretend that I’ve been facilitating preschool storytime.  We’ve been singing and playing the song "Fly Away Little Birdie" every single week.  I notice the kids are playing it out in the play area after storytime.  The following week, we play "Fly Away Little Birdie" again, and I have them follow along as we “draw” the song in the air our fingers.  We will not “draw” the entire song.  Instead, we will “draw” short phrases like “Fly away little birdie” or “way up in the sky.”  After three or four weeks of having the kiddos mirror my movements when we chunk the song, I will notice the way that a child has chosen to “draw” the song and we will mirror that child’s movements.

Since most storytime sessions are between 10-14 weeks, that will be as far as we get with mapping and that is perfectly okay.

X Marks the Spot: The Value of Mapping

In her book Aesthetic Foundations of Thinking, Mary Helen Richards said: “Each song is a microcosm of the child’s own language, containing all the elements of language.” 

Whether we are mapping a song in the air or on paper, children are provided with the opportunity to work with the song through symbolizing the song.

The benefits of mapping are:

• Making self-made symbols
• Builds language skills
• Self expression
• Works on fine and gross motor skills (finger/hand dexterity, coordination, supports the movement of writing across a page)