Introduction to Rhythm Reading

 New School, New Things to Learn!

    I was blessed and fortunate enough to be selected as the brand new music teacher for an elementary school a few weeks ago, after their previous educator retired.  Obviously as a new person coming in during the middle of the school year, I had many challenges and for the first two weeks spent much of my time focused on classroom organization and management.  With that out of the way, I can now begin the fun stuff!

     None of my children know what solfeggio is yet, nor have they ever truly sight-read, which is actually wonderful for me!  Now I can teach them something brand new and exciting!

Rhythm Reading -  Part 1

     To begin the introduction of rhythm reading, I had the children keep a steady beat on their laps.  While they kept a steady beat, I would start a call and response.  I would use the words "cheese" and "pizza" to create rhythms (cheese = quarter note or 1 beat, and pizza = 1/8 note or 1/2 beat):

1. "Cheese, Cheese, Cheese, Cheese" and "Pizza, Pizza, Pizza, Pizza"

2. "Cheese, Pizza, Cheese, Pizza" and "Pizza, Cheese, Pizza, Cheese"

3. "Pizza, Cheese, Cheese, Pizza" and "Cheese, Pizza, Pizza, Cheese"

     Obviously you can alternate "pizza" and "cheese to come up with lots of different and fun rhythms using quarter and 1/8 notes.

Rhythm Reading - Part 2

     I then asked my children how many times they clapped their laps when I said "cheese" and "pizza."  The correct answer is one, but sometimes they will answer four because they misunderstand the question as the exercise is in 4/4 time.  I then use an English concept, syllables, to explain that cheese is one syllable, and pizza is two.  I say, "Isn't that so interesting, that I can make two sounds: piz-za on one beat?"

     I then ask one of the students what their favorite sandwich is.  I use their favorite sandwich to incorporate a math concept, fractions, and to help them understand that an 1/8 note is half the value of a quarter note.  I say, 

T: "Imagine your mom made you this amazing ____________ (insert favorite here) sandwich, but your friend (point to the person next to them) forgot to bring his lunch.  Now, since you are such a nice person, you cut your sandwich right down the middle; you keep part of it and give the other part to your friend.  Now you each have 1/2 a sandwich.  You didn't magically make two big sandwiches from cutting one sandwich in half, did you?" 

S: Resounding "no," with laughter.

T: "So if you two put your pieces together, how many sandwiches would you make?"

S: One!

T: "So how much of a sandwich do you think each person has, if we take one sandwich and split it up?"

S: "Half!"

      Note: Some students might not fully understand.  I drew on the blackboard to give them a visual, but in general, it's nice to just throw the students some pearls, even if they don't quite understand the concepts just yet.

Rhythm Reading - Part 3

     I created a large bulletin board with all the grades listed, as well as dry erase staff posters beneath each grade.  This has become my new sight-reading board, where the children can practice saying rhythms while keeping a steady beat on their laps.  I will change the notation on it each week as we discover more notes and learn about their rhythm values.

     For this week, I used quarter notes and 1/8 notes for the rhythm readings.  I pointed to the quarter notes, asked what kind of value it had, and then asked the students to say "ta" every time they saw it.  I then pointed to the 1/8 notes, asked what value they had, and asked the students to say "ti" every time they saw one.  I obviously grouped two 1/8 notes together every time, so they would always say "ti-ti."  I then related "ta" to "cheese" and "ti-ti" to "pizza."

The students were able to sight-read the rhythms while keeping a steady beat with very few problems, if any.

Conclusion

Overall, I felt my lesson was highly successful.  The children, K-5, were almost all able to keep a steady beat on their laps, recognize "ta" as a quarter note and understand the value, as well as recognizing "ti-ti" as an 1/8 note.  The majority of the students were able to effectively rhythm read with very little trouble while staying on the steady beat.