Nothing takes the edge off a long car ride like a singalong. Last week, my two-year-old niece, Maggie, was petering out near the end of a three-hour–plus drive, and we started singing If You’re Happy and You Know It! How I wish we’d had Jane Cabrera’s board book with us! Suzie, Maggie’s mother, and I quickly ran out of verses. (You may remember Suzie from the Musical Literacy blog.) We could only remember the “clap your hands” and “stamp your feet” verses, and Maggie was strapped into her car seat, so we were trying to come up with verses she could do in her confined state.
As the saying goes, “Desperation is the mother of invention,” so we started making up verses (and of course, repeating them—thank goodness toddlers love to repeat things). Maggie’s favorite was “touch your nose.” We repeated that verse a lot. You know how you always think of the perfect line hours after a conversation takes place? Well, since then I’ve thought of “wiggle your ears” and “go snap, snap” (with your fingers). But the point is, there are myriad opportunities to add verses.
That’s what I enjoyed most about Jane Cabrera’s version of the song. She spices it up with humor, with the chimp clapping, the elephant stamping its very large feet, and the giraffe nodding its head at the end of a very looong neck. If we’d had Cabrera's book in our “backseat library,” we may still have run out of verses, but we would have had a much longer stretch without a repeat (more important to the adults than the toddler). It’s nearly impossible to come away from this song without feeling uplifted and energized. Altogether now, “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands!”
Showing posts with label Musical literacy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Musical literacy. Show all posts
Friday, May 7, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
The Read-Aloud Streak
For those of you who’ve been following along for awhile, you already know how passionately I believe in reading aloud together.
I’m privileged to serve on the Bank Street Children’s Book Committee, and one of the great pleasures I derive from the many hours we spend together discussing books is when one of the members says, “Just listen to the language here,” or “look how playful the rhythms are in this section,” and he or she proceeds to read aloud the author’s words. To sit back and let the words wash over me is sheer heaven. I have never outgrown it. And if you are truly honest with yourself, you haven’t outgrown it either. There is nothing like the sound of a true storyteller’s voice.
That brings me to the piece I discovered in last Sunday’s New York Times. A father and daughter had started what they deemed, “The Streak”—a read-aloud streak. Kristen and Jim Brozina began to read aloud together on November 11, 1997, when Kristen was in fourth grade, and read for 3,218 straight nights until her first day of college. At a time when their family’s composition was changing (Kristen’s mother left the family, and her older sister left for college), this father-daughter read-aloud ritual became a stabilizing force for them both.
And what did I think of? Another parent and child who share a love of books and, more specifically, poetry: Julie Andrews and her daughter, Emma Walton Hamilton. They share a love of writing poetry, too, and include some of their own works in Julie Andrews’ Collection of Poems, Songs, and Lullabies, illustrated by the wonderful James McMullan. Music is another powerful way into words and literacy, too, and the mother-daughter selectors include a wide range of song lyrics, not only diverse in their uplifting or melancholy tones, but also in their level of sophistication. There is plenty here for the entire family to enjoy.
Who knows, as you gather next week for Passover or Easter, you may be inspired to start a “Streak” of your own…
I’m privileged to serve on the Bank Street Children’s Book Committee, and one of the great pleasures I derive from the many hours we spend together discussing books is when one of the members says, “Just listen to the language here,” or “look how playful the rhythms are in this section,” and he or she proceeds to read aloud the author’s words. To sit back and let the words wash over me is sheer heaven. I have never outgrown it. And if you are truly honest with yourself, you haven’t outgrown it either. There is nothing like the sound of a true storyteller’s voice.
That brings me to the piece I discovered in last Sunday’s New York Times. A father and daughter had started what they deemed, “The Streak”—a read-aloud streak. Kristen and Jim Brozina began to read aloud together on November 11, 1997, when Kristen was in fourth grade, and read for 3,218 straight nights until her first day of college. At a time when their family’s composition was changing (Kristen’s mother left the family, and her older sister left for college), this father-daughter read-aloud ritual became a stabilizing force for them both.
And what did I think of? Another parent and child who share a love of books and, more specifically, poetry: Julie Andrews and her daughter, Emma Walton Hamilton. They share a love of writing poetry, too, and include some of their own works in Julie Andrews’ Collection of Poems, Songs, and Lullabies, illustrated by the wonderful James McMullan. Music is another powerful way into words and literacy, too, and the mother-daughter selectors include a wide range of song lyrics, not only diverse in their uplifting or melancholy tones, but also in their level of sophistication. There is plenty here for the entire family to enjoy.
Who knows, as you gather next week for Passover or Easter, you may be inspired to start a “Streak” of your own…
Friday, August 21, 2009
Preparing to Read
Before children can read words, they are absorbing clues about stories in other ways, and often more quickly than we think.
We could speculate about why Mother Goose’s often nonsensical rhymes are so appealing to young children, but since they don’t have the tools yet to tell us themselves, we will never know for certain. The rhymes offer so many details and such unusual situations, that they’ve inspired an abundance of illustrations both delectably simple and elegantly complex.
Every nursery should have at least one collection of Mother Goose rhymes, and we recommend My Very First Mother Goose for its inclusion of all-time favorites and Rosemary Wells’ welcoming animal characters. What I like about Mother Goose: Numbers on the Loose as an addition to your child’s Mother Goose library is that Leo and Diane Dillon have created a loose kind of logic to the nonsense rhymes through the unifying theme of numbers and the idea of putting on a play.
Most of the rhymes the Dillons have chosen use numbers 1 to 5, which toddlers can master on one hand. Still others in this volume have been set to music (such as “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep,” “One, Two, Buckle My Shoe,” and “Four and Twenty Blackbirds”), so youngsters have yet another way of building confidence, a kind of Musical Literacy. I also think it’s important that adults enjoy the books they read (or sing) aloud, because when a child loves a book, they want to return to it again and again, and the more variety you can discover in the illustrations, or in the ways that you join in the refrain together, the more you and your child enjoy the book together.
As young children feel more confident with words and numbers, with holding a book and turning the pages, they begin to think of themselves as readers.
We could speculate about why Mother Goose’s often nonsensical rhymes are so appealing to young children, but since they don’t have the tools yet to tell us themselves, we will never know for certain. The rhymes offer so many details and such unusual situations, that they’ve inspired an abundance of illustrations both delectably simple and elegantly complex.
Every nursery should have at least one collection of Mother Goose rhymes, and we recommend My Very First Mother Goose for its inclusion of all-time favorites and Rosemary Wells’ welcoming animal characters. What I like about Mother Goose: Numbers on the Loose as an addition to your child’s Mother Goose library is that Leo and Diane Dillon have created a loose kind of logic to the nonsense rhymes through the unifying theme of numbers and the idea of putting on a play.
Most of the rhymes the Dillons have chosen use numbers 1 to 5, which toddlers can master on one hand. Still others in this volume have been set to music (such as “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep,” “One, Two, Buckle My Shoe,” and “Four and Twenty Blackbirds”), so youngsters have yet another way of building confidence, a kind of Musical Literacy. I also think it’s important that adults enjoy the books they read (or sing) aloud, because when a child loves a book, they want to return to it again and again, and the more variety you can discover in the illustrations, or in the ways that you join in the refrain together, the more you and your child enjoy the book together.
As young children feel more confident with words and numbers, with holding a book and turning the pages, they begin to think of themselves as readers.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Musical Literacy
Have you ever noticed that the melody for "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" shows up for a variety of favorite childhood lyrics?
Maybe I'm the only adult who didn't know this, but on a recent visit to New York, Suzie Chase Brown, my sister-in-law, pointed this out to me as we skipped down the street with her son (my nephew), Tiger, between us.
"Have you ever noticed that the ABC song is set to the melody of 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star'?" she asked. We enlisted Tiger's help (he is six now, and very comfortable with his ABCs). We asked him to sing the ABC song while his mother and I sang "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." Sure enough, Tiger confirmed, after merrily trumpeting, "A B C D E F G,..." the songs shared the same melody.
"And," Suzie added, " 'Baa, Baa, Black Sheep,' too." This time Tiger wanted to sing about the sheep: "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep,/ Have you any wool?/ Yes sir, Yes sir/ Three bags full." Well! I thought, is there no other melody under the sun? Maybe not, but what a fun idea to share with a child! They can test each song against the melody of "Twinkle, Twinkle..." in order to prove or disprove this theory themselves. Look how well they've done their research, and they realize that they can master all these different songs!
Voila! Not only do your youngsters discover that they have a fine repertoire, but they now have a way to talk about melody using songs they know well. They have acquired musical literacy.
Maybe I'm the only adult who didn't know this, but on a recent visit to New York, Suzie Chase Brown, my sister-in-law, pointed this out to me as we skipped down the street with her son (my nephew), Tiger, between us.
"Have you ever noticed that the ABC song is set to the melody of 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star'?" she asked. We enlisted Tiger's help (he is six now, and very comfortable with his ABCs). We asked him to sing the ABC song while his mother and I sang "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." Sure enough, Tiger confirmed, after merrily trumpeting, "A B C D E F G,..." the songs shared the same melody.
"And," Suzie added, " 'Baa, Baa, Black Sheep,' too." This time Tiger wanted to sing about the sheep: "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep,/ Have you any wool?/ Yes sir, Yes sir/ Three bags full." Well! I thought, is there no other melody under the sun? Maybe not, but what a fun idea to share with a child! They can test each song against the melody of "Twinkle, Twinkle..." in order to prove or disprove this theory themselves. Look how well they've done their research, and they realize that they can master all these different songs!
Voila! Not only do your youngsters discover that they have a fine repertoire, but they now have a way to talk about melody using songs they know well. They have acquired musical literacy.
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