Reading Comprehension and Reading

Integration of music and reading may help parents prepare their children for school. On the surface, music and literacy seem opposite of each other both in meaning and delivery. However, the two forms of learning go hand in hand. For example, lyrics and literacy are similar because lyrics are the words sung in a song. Often, they are poetic and can be understood as poetry that sometimes tells a story.

Many singer songwriters are also storytellers, weaving intricate and powerful stories into their songs. If one examines a music soundtrack and a story line/plot, one can see how music is used to help tell the story as much as the narrative itself. As technology advances, music is becoming readily interweaved with reading comprehension. One study examined the use of multimodal e-books that combined text with animation, images, and sounds. Children made academic gains in reading from using multimodal e-books (Morgan, 2013).

Music does not have to be the only way children can learn reading comprehension. Sound serves as the basis for music and can help children improve their reading comprehension through audio-assisted reading. "...the audio-assisted reading group's improvement in reading rates and comprehension levels was substantially higher than for the silent reading group" (Chang & Millett, 2015, p. 91). By using sound along with reading, it may help children understand the linguistics aspect of reading and therefore improve memory and reading comprehension. Moreover, it may help children improve their listening comprehension, a potentially untapped fountain of information researchers has yet to examine in depth.

Listening comprehension is "among the least understood and least researched of language skills. For many years, listening has been neglected as part of language arts curricula" (Podhajski, 2016, p. 43). Having been disregarded compared to reading, writing, and speaking, listening has seen a resurgence an interest in recent years. Instructors wishing to provide listening comprehension curriculum to students have turned to frameworks that incorporate understanding pitch, volume, and tone. This means inclusion of music in order to provide improved listening comprehension to students. Listening comprehension may be a reason why music and reading can work hand in hand to promote reading comprehension in students.

Because language is such a complex and multi-faceted area of learning, music can help deliver a better means of educating a young child. "Language includes phonology, the sound system; morphology, meaningful word parts; semantics, word meanings and relationships; grammar and syntax, the rules governing our use of spoken and written language; discourse, connected language as in stories or conversation; and, pragmatics" (Podhajski, 2016, p. 43). Human language relies on constituent structure as its central feature. "Analogous to how syntax organizes words in sentences, a narrative grammar organizes sequential images into hierarchic constituents" (Cohn, Jackendoff, Holcomb, & Kuperberg, 2014, p. 63). By providing children with a framework that allows learning from a multi-faceted perspective, it has the potential of promoting effective learning practices. Such practices can then be taken into school, where these children can harness what they learn and succeed academically.

This paper aims to understand the effects of integration of music and reading and help answer the question: Does integration of music and reading before entering school make a difference in a child's ability to read versus children who do not receive a combination of integrative music and reading from their parents before entering school? By analyzing previous similar experiments and conducting an experiment, this paper aims to provide evidence supporting or refuting the notion that integration of music and reading can improve a child's reading comprehension.

The experiment will include six children aged 5-7. They will have access to various tools and programs that incorporate music and reading. They will be monitored for a period of 2 weeks. Their progress will be one month after school commences. One group will receive integrative curriculum while the other will receive non-integrative, traditional curriculum. Results will be assessed before entering school and one month after entering school.

The literature review will cover the various similar studies performed and will act as a guide for the formation of the experiment. Several hypotheses will be formulated to provide a framework from which to continue with the experiment. The hypothetical results will allow for a simulated outcome that will help future experiments understand how to perform.

Literature Review

This literature review aims to understand how music and reading integration may help a child improve his or her reading comprehension level. The eight studies are from recent years and incorporate various methods of learning from online reading strategies to utilization of internet resources and e-readers. Each study is experimental in nature and an understanding of reading comprehension from a varied perspective. Music and reading will be examined not just from one aspect, but from several, including use of sound and speech.

Online Reading

The internet provides a plethora of resources that instructors or parents can use to teach children to read. One 2013 study aimed to design and develop a "web-based reading strategy training program and investigated students' use of its features and EFL teachers' and students' perceptions of the program" (Huang, 2013, p. 340). The program provided students with "four types of reading strategy functions (Global, Problem-solving, Support, and Socio-affective) through 15 strategy buttons: Keyword, Preview, Prediction, Outline, Summary, Semantic Mapping, Pronunciation, Speed Reading, Dictionary, Translation, Grammar, Highlight, Notebook, Music Box, and My Questions" (Huang, 2013, p. 340). This kind of program aimed to allow children the ability to read not just from a traditional perspective, but from a modern perspective, including sounds and speech in the types of reading strategy functions. The study's results stated students felt more engaged with the learning material offered and felt a higher motivation to learn. Thus, proving students need a varied learning environment to learn effectively.

Another study focused on the advancements of technology and the inclusion of electronic reading systems (Wright, Fugett, & Caputa, 2013). Digital text has led to creation of reading material that incorporates sounds, music, and speech into reading. The researchers compared reading comprehension scores and vocabulary comprehension from paper-based book reading to electronic story book reading. They used an AB experimental design with three females aged 7-8 years, enrolled in second grade, as participants.

The results of the study pointed towards no significant improvement from reading digital text or paper-based text. However, they did note the higher level of engagement and motivation with the digital text option. This is because of the convenience and accessibility the participants had to the reading materials. In addition, there was an added option to look at online materials connected to the digital books. This study suggests the need to incorporate more online resources and reading tools to promote higher levels of motivation and engagement.

Music Education and Language

Musical training or music education has been linked in the past with phonological awareness and as a learning aid for children who have trouble reading. A 2013 study noted the small quantity of studies that provided support suggesting music training can improve reading in children. However, they sought to answer whether musical training can help children that have not begun formal reading instruction. They explored two dimensions of their question by examining links among kindergarten aged children's phonological awareness and music rhythm skills. In addition, if there were improvements from those that received intensive musical training versus those that did not.

The results suggested "rhythm skill was related to phonological segmentation skill at the beginning of kindergarten, and that children who received more music training during kindergarten showed improvement in a wider range of phonological awareness skills at the end of kindergarten" (Moritz, Yampolsky, Papadelis, Thomson, & Wolf, 2012, p. 739). The study's results support the idea that music and reading can be used together to improve reading comprehension in children through improving certain aspects of reading like in this case, phonological awareness. Studies like this help bridge the gap between music and reading integration. Furthermore, they help produce a connection between reading and music instruction.

Music education can help students with disabilities read as well. Another study examining music education and how it can improve reading skills in dyslexic children. Specifically, how musical training may remediate timing problems, increase spatial awareness, or augment pitch perception (Cogo-Moreira, Andriolo, Yazigi, Brandao de Avila, & Mari, 2012). This can then lead to improvements in fluency, and literacy. Although the researchers searched for evidence from randomized controlled trials to see if musical training had a positive impact on the reading ability of students with dyslexia. They could not find any evidence suggesting the possibility. The article brings to attention a gap in research showing there lacks enough information to understand any possible connections with musical training and literacy improvement in children with learning disabilities.

Not many studies focus on the benefits of musical training on reading. One study examined such benefits musical training has on language skills through discussion of five subskills that underlie reading acquisition. They are: "phonological awareness, speech-in-noise perception, rhythm perception, auditory working memory, and the ability to learn sound patterns- and show that each is linked to music experience" (Tierney & Kraus, 2013, p. 209). The researched searched longitudinal studies to see if musical training can improve those areas and thus improve reading. Their findings suggest musical training can offer effective educational strategies for all children when it comes to language development and reading. This also includes helping those with language learning impairments improve their skills providing support for the previous non-conclusive article on musical training and dyslexia.

Speech and Reading

Speech is part of music, just like sound is. Reading often incorporates the use of speech by reading aloud or listening to others read aloud. One article examined (through quantitative correlational research) how linguistic technology-based integrative teaching strategies worked towards improve reading competence in college-aged students (Madkour, 2016). The different phases tested six skills some of which were identifying central ideas, comparing and contrasting, and cause and effect relationships. Students that used the linguistic-integrative model showed significant improvements throughout testing than those that did not. The study strongly supports the use of models that include sounds, speech, and technology into their reading practices.

While one study came up inconclusive with musical training and improvement of skills in students with dyslexia, another study provided marked improvement in phonological development. Phonological development is associated with speech and language development. In the study, musical training helped students with dyslexia improve their sound rise time. By showing their progress or regression over time, the researchers identified musical beat structure as a major longitudinal predictor of "development in reading, accounting for over half of the variance in reading comprehension along with a linguistic measure of phonological awareness" (Goswami, Huss, Mead, Fosker, & Verney, 2013, p. 1363). This provides direct evidence that musical training can help improve reading comprehension.

Speech can be an important aspect of music and reading integration. A 2011 study experimented with speech and music within interrupted reading. They found background speech and music to have a positive effect on reading, specifically background speech, by slowing down reading rates and promoting long-term working memory (Cauchard, Cane, & Weger, 2011). This is because students had to re-read the words and pay more attention to what they read. Studies like these help offer an understanding of the mechanisms behind reading and why such methods improve reading comprehension.

This literature review covered musical training and its impact on reading comprehension. It did so by exploring speech, music, and the mechanisms behind their ability to improve reading comprehension in children. The information gleamed from the literature review will help set up the framework for the hypotheses in the next section.

Hypotheses

The hypothesis centers on whether music and reading integration can improve reading comprehension in children before attending school. The literature review pointed to music and reading integration improving reading comprehension for children before entering school, for children in school, and for children with learning disabilities like dyslexia. However, the hypothesis then took a small detour to become focused on what aspects of music enable potential reading comprehension improvement when integrated with reading? This is where the experiment will try to explore new avenues.

Specifically, can music and reading integration lead to increase phonological awareness/development that will then lead to improved reading comprehension? A 2016 study examining the left hemisphere of young readers, saw a link between phonological awareness and temporal processing (Ugolini et al., 2016). "Phonological awareness, the ability to manipulate the sounds of language, is key for learning to read. The first step towards phonological competence is identification of syllables and rimes" (Ugolini et al., 2016, p. 17). For young reader to see improvement in their reading, music integrative methods should focus on cultivating phonological awareness.

Children with higher levels of phonological awareness may be able to improve their listening comprehension (a topic briefly covered in the literature review) as well as their reading comprehension. As Ugoloini et al. (2016), mentioned in their study, rise times or amplitude rise times (ART) influence a child's degree of phonological awareness. Experiments performed should target rise times and other aspects of phonological awareness to better understand its potentially positive impact on reading comprehension. As another article stated, the need to understand the impact is imperative as many have come to realize phonological awareness as an essential precondition for early literacy development (Kempert et al., 2016).

Method

The research design is experimental in which an experiment is performed via a procedure, program, or treatment with an observed outcome/result. A true experiment has four elements. These elements are random assignment, random selection, control, and manipulation. For true experiments manipulation and control are the most important elements. "Manipulation means that something is purposefully changed by the researcher in the environment. Control is used to prevent outside factors from influencing the study outcome" (Munigal, 2017, p. 57). Through manipulation and control, the outcomes seem more accurate and reliable due to the minimization of bias and error.

The experiment consists of participation from six children aged 5-7. The sample has 2 boys and 4 girls and are split into two groups. One group is the control group that has no access to music and reading integration, instead traditional reading instruction and curriculum. The other group has music and reading integration. The information collection takes place in two periods. The first before school starts and the second 1 month after school has started. This is so potential reading comprehension improvement can be seen in two ways, outside of formal reading instruction and inside.

They will have access to various tools and programs that incorporate music and reading. They will be monitored for a period of 2 weeks. Their progress will be marked one day before school commences and one month after school commences. One group will receive integrative curriculum while the other will receive non-integrative, traditional curriculum.

The methodologies behind experimental studies are to explore, compare, explain, demonstrate, and validate theories. Types of experimental designs consist of true experiments, repeated measures, quasi-experimental designs, and time series designs. An example of a true experiment is educational technology application where students would be randomly assigned feedback treatments. An example of repeated measures is a study that involves the use of three presentation formats prevents randomly to a set number of subjects. An example of a quasi-experimental design is one that has a control group and measures effects over time like the present experimental study involving music and reading integration. A time series experiment example can be seen in the Alper Thoresen, and Wright Study. The researchers focused on the effects of videotapes on increasing the positive attention of a teacher to suitable student comportment (Jonassen & Association for Educational Communications and Technology, 2004).

The quasi-experiment is the appropriate method for this empirical study because it is often used to evaluate the causal impact of an interposition on its participants without the need for random assignment (DeLuse & Braver, 2015. Because this is an educational-themed study, the call for randomization is unnecessary and may cause trouble for the outcome of the experiment. Participants are selected and placed into one of two groups with both groups having two girls and one boy. Although random assignment lends to higher internal validity, researchers in education use this methodology more frequently than others.

The pretest and 2 posttests for the study involved use of surveys with closed-ended questions. The aptitude, motivation, and engagement will be measured through a Likert Scale with 1 being the lowest ad 5 being the highest. Data collection in pretest will occur the first day of the experiment, the last day of the experiment matching the day before school starts and one month after school started for the 6 participants. The instruments used are e-Readers, music programs for the e-Readers, smartphones, smartphone reading apps, and print books. The parents will be surveyed as well with a total of 6 parents surveyed to see if they noticed improvement in their children's reading comprehension.