The Music and Literacy Connection - Softcover

Dee Hansen, DMA, is professor of music education at The Hartt School, University of Hartford. She is known for her work in literacy and music learning, curriculum and assessment development, and leadership.

Elaine Bernstorf, PhD, CCC-SLP is professor of music education at Wichita State University, Kansas and a speech pathologist known for her work in disabilities, literacy, and arts integration.

Gayle Stuber, PhD, is the Early Childhood Coordinator for the Kansas State Department of
Education. In addition to working with schools across the state, she is actively involved in
national initiatives for early childhood education.

Pressure to improve student literacy skills has grown in this era of common core state standards (CCSS) and the Race to the Top initiative. Many administrators and specials teachers have sought to tie subjects such as music to literacy as a means of obtaining greater student achievement in this area. The Music and Literacy Connection provides a framework that will permit music education specialists, administrators, reading specialists, and general education teachers to teach musical activities in a way that allows students to transfer certain skills to reading. The book, which also contains an introduction and appendices, is organized into four parts that treat children as interactive learners, explore the connection between literacy and music instruction, discuss ways to teach literacy through multiple processes, and examine the lifelong benefits of musical training. The book includes detailed explanations of some of the fundamentals of music and literacy instruction and a variety of charts, tables, figures, and other visuals that make the work accessible to all. Especially useful are a variety of subsections directed at practitioners, including recommendations for using instructional strategies with cooperative groups, children of different ages, and connections with the CCSS. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers, upper-division undergraduate students, and above. (CHOICE)

As an educator and teacher of future educators, I am forever looking for new, more relevant materials to bolster our teaching methods courses. In that regard, I find the revised edition of The Music Literacy Connection to be a useful resource with a number of different potential applications. For example, it offers a fresh look at such necessary topics as writing and assessing meaningful learning outcomes, constructing lesson plans for a broad range of teaching/learning environments, and using various new technologies, to name only a few. It also provides some important insights into rapidly changing national trends in educational policy with special attention to several relevant Common Core Standards. The detailed, practical, and up-to-date content of this book; consistently communicated in a straightforward no-nonsense way; makes it a useful tool in our arsenal of materials to prepare pre-service Pre-K-12 teachers in both music classroom and general classroom settings. (Marvin E. Latimer, Ph.D., associate professor of choral music education, music education department head, The University of Alabama)

The Music and Literacy Connection” remains a core text about the importance of making music literacy and holistic literacy connections in public school settings. It is a rich resource for creating or revising K-12 music curriculum based on the National Core Arts Standards and the Common Core State Standards. Simsbury Public School teachers have worked with the text as a guide during professional development sessions about the importance of music and literacy connections. Our teachers have become experts at making those connections come to life in their classrooms. The Music and Literacy Connection is the most comprehensive professional development that a classroom teacher or building administrator could receive about the impact of music education in the general classroom. It should be a required text for all students completing degrees in music education. The Music and Literacy Connection is a must read for all music educators! (Angela D. Griffin, K-12 director of music and performing arts, Simsbury Public Schools, Simsbury, CT)

The Music and Literacy Connection is a valuable resource for all music educators, though particularly for those called upon to address The Common Core State Standards in English Literacy. Included in this text is research to support the relationship between music and literacy, as well as practical ideas for the classroom teacher. This text skillfully attends to the skills and knowledge students must have related to reading, without neglecting the importance of music learning. (Alice-Ann Darrow, Irvin Cooper Professor of Music Therapy and Music Education, came to The Florida State University in 2003 from The University of Kansas)