A Thesis entitled Music and Compound Words by Theodora E. Middleton Submitted to the Graduate Faculty as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master’s Degree in Music Education _________________________________________ Dr. Timothy Brakel, Committee Chair _________________________________________ Dr. Pamela Stover, Committee Member _________________________________________ Dr. David Jex, Committee Member _________________________________________ Dr. Patricia R. Komuniecki, Dean College of Graduate Studies The University of Toledo May 2012 iii iv An Abstract of Music and Compound Words by Theodora E. Middleton Submitted to the Graduate Faculty as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master’s Degree in Music Education The University of Toledo May 2012 With the advent of the Common Core Curriculum, teachers will be asked to embed literacy into their lessons regardless of their content area. Fortunately for music educators, research indicates that music promotes literacy. Music is also a useful tool for regular classroom teachers. Compound words are an area of difficulty for Emergent Readers, English Language Learners (ELL) and students with learning disabilities. Jean Berko Gleason (1958), a psycholinguist from Boston University, found children were not always aware of the separate elements of compound words. While some children noticed the separate elements, they often assigned meaning to these parts that were inaccurate or merely personal. While many music and literacy researchers agree that music promotes literacy, there is a gap between scholarly theory and useful classroom tools. This project focuses on approaching this gap by creating new modules that are easy to use in the elementary general classroom. Each module contains multiple compound words piggybacked onto well-known melodies. In addition, a newly created index of high-quality folk songs containing compound words is located in Appendix A. iii For Max and Grace iv Acknowledgements Many thanks to my professional colleagues and allies: Marion Jaeck, who brainstormed with me on this project, gave advice and friendship; and DeLee Beadle, who is an excellent sounding board and compassionate friend. Thank you to my professors: Dr. Timothy Brakel, for helping me figure out how to complete course work while being a working, single mother; and Dr. Pamela Stover, for all of her time and plentiful resources. Thank you to Brent Coldiron for stress-reducing yoga and laughter. Thank you to Dee Walker for child care. My family has given me the courage to do anything I set my mind to: Matthew, Seth, Tori, Stacie, LJ, James & Quinn, I am blessed to have you. This has definitely been a group effort as my mother, Sheilah Grogan (Mimi) assisted in line editing and moral support. My talented sister, Alexandra, helped with formatting. And almost everyone took a turn babysitting. And a special thank you to my children, Max and Grace, who sacrificed so much for the good of our little family. And lastly, for Rusty: thanks for making me a fighter. v Table of Contents Abstract iii Dedication iv Acknowledgements v Table of Contents vi List of Tables ix List of Figures x Chapter I. Introduction 1 Music and Literacy 1 Purpose and Questions 2 Music in the Classroom 2 Compound Words and Second Grade in the Common Core 3 Newly Created Materials 4 Procedures 5 Selection of Compound Words 5 Method of Research and Sources 8 Design 9 Chapter II. Literature Review—Past and Current Overviews 12 Common Core 12 Common Core Concerns 13 Literature Review on Music and Literacy 15 Phonological Awareness 15 vi Phonemic Awareness 17 Orthographic Awareness 18 Music Experiences and Children 18 Recurrent Process 19 Compound Word Challenges 20 Compound Word Research 20 Decoding Difficulties 22 Chapter III. Available Resources 24 Songs for Teaching Compound Words 24 Songs Containing Compound Words 27 Chapter IV. Classroom Solutions 31 Nature Compound Words 31 Word Family –ay and Compound Words 35 Times of Day Compound Words 37 Sports –all Compound Words 39 Food Compound Words 42 Chapter V. Conclusions 45 Appendix Resources 45 Literacy Projects in the Music Classroom 46 Further Application 48 Conclusion 50 References 51 Appendices 56 vii A. Folk Song Index 56 B. Resources for Educators 70 C. Compound Word List 72 viii List of Tables Table 1: Common Core Standards ...................................................................................3 Table 2: Hyphenated Compound Words ..........................................................................6 Table 3: Evolved Compound Words ................................................................................7 Table 4: Sample of Folk Song Index..............................................................................10 ix List of Figures Figure 1.1 Nature compound words ..................................................................................31 Figure 1.2 ..........................................................................................................................32 Figure 1.3 ..........................................................................................................................32 Figure 1.4 ..........................................................................................................................32 Figure 1.5 ..........................................................................................................................33 Figure 1.6 ..........................................................................................................................33 Figure 1.7 ..........................................................................................................................33 Figure 1.8 ..........................................................................................................................34 Figure 1.9 ..........................................................................................................................34 Figure 2.1 -ay compound words ........................................................................................35 Figure 2.2 ..........................................................................................................................35 Figure 2.3 ..........................................................................................................................35 Figure 2.4 ..........................................................................................................................36 Figure 2.5 ..........................................................................................................................36 Figure 3.1 Times of day compound words ........................................................................37 Figure 3.2 ..........................................................................................................................37 Figure 3.3 ..........................................................................................................................37 Figure 3.4 ..........................................................................................................................38 Figure 3.5 ..........................................................................................................................38 Figure 3.6 ..........................................................................................................................38 Figure 3.7 ..........................................................................................................................39 x Figure 4.1 Sports –all compound words ...........................................................................39 Figure 4.2 ..........................................................................................................................40 Figure 4.3 ..........................................................................................................................40 Figure 4.4 ..........................................................................................................................40 Figure 4.5 ..........................................................................................................................41 Figure 4.6 ..........................................................................................................................41 Figure 4.7 ..........................................................................................................................41 Figure 5.1 Food compound words .....................................................................................42 Figure 5.2 ..........................................................................................................................42 Figure 5.3 ..........................................................................................................................43 Figure 5.4 ..........................................................................................................................43 Figure 5.5 ..........................................................................................................................43 Figure 5.6 ..........................................................................................................................44 Figure 5.7 ..........................................................................................................................44 Figure 6 Caps for sale .....................................................................................................48