Abstract
Little Excavator, a recent publication by Anna Dewdney, is a delightful picture book for young children and perfect for a musical shared book experience in a group setting for preschool and first-grade children. In this article, connections between music learning and the typical shared book experience are outlined. Musical ways to share the book and extension activities for pitch and rhythm concepts are provided. The author includes alignments to National Core Music Standards as well as English Language Common Core Standards for music and reading teachers.
Keywords
Since the 1990s, general music teachers have proposed ways to connect children’s literature and music in meaningful ways. Several authors have published in professional journals about teaching music through children’s books. They provide rationales for music and language connections (Calogero, 2002; Eppink, 2009; Fallin, 1995; Gauthier, 2005; Miller, 2008; Paul, 2004), identify categories of children’s literature for use in music classrooms (Calogero, 2002; Miller, 2008; Paul, 2004), and create structures for planning integrative lessons (Eppink, 2009). Additionally, authors have generated lists of children’s literature and described sample lessons connecting music and books for music teachers to use in their general music classrooms (Calogero, 2002; Gauthier, 2005; Miller 2008; Paul, 2004). The consensus of these authors is that children’s literature is rich with opportunities to enhance knowledge and skills in the domains of music and language.
A purpose of this column is to explore, create, and describe ways in which children’s literature—as well as other aspects of language literacy—can be employed in general music classrooms. In addition, readers will discover ready-to-use music activities as well as expand their knowledge of language literacy, such as vocabulary acquisition and polysemous words (Cardany, 2012, 2015), phonological awareness (Cardany, 2011a), reading comprehension (Cardany, 2011b), and transactional reading theory (Cardany, 2014). In this article, the author describes and employs a whole language technique (i.e., the shared book experience) in a music lesson using children’s literature, as well as singing and reading icons for music concepts of pitch and rhythm.
The Story
Anna Dewdney’s (2017) publication, Little Excavator, is a delightful picture book for young children and perfect for a musical shared book experience in a group setting (see Figure 1). Readers meet the big rigs—’dozer, loader, dump truck, backhoe, and crane—all doing their construction jobs. Little Excavator is eager to help on the lot but usually falls short of the task at hand. The big rigs help Little Excavator out of trouble when it tries to do the same work as the others—digging holes and loading junk. With each effort the others remind Little Excavator that it is too short, too small, or too weak, and their parental advice is to wait for “someday when you’re big.” Despite the failed efforts to dig, lug, dump, and haul like the big rigs, one task fits just right—the one for which being small is exactly what is needed. The big rigs cheer Little Excavator’s success in hauling an apple tree across a narrow bridge, and then digging its hole and lifting and planting it. With the job completed, the construction of a community park project is accomplished.
Book cover for Little Excavator by Anna Dewdney.
Dewdney’s text has a predictable sequence of exposition of characters and setting followed by a series of events performed with repetitive text, which serve to establish a problem for resolution. Embedded in the story are several positive messages. The big rigs demonstrate patience with Little E when it gets in their way, and then they celebrate its success. The story sends an encouraging message for children struggling with wanting to do what “the big kids” do. Also Little E’s tenacity is rewarded in the end, communicating a disposition for perseverance through failure. The task of transforming a vacant lot into a public park provides an example of work that contributes to a community. And finally, the avoidance of male or female pronouns seems purposeful and likely encourages girls and boys to identify with the little excavator’s challenges.
Shared Book Experience
The shared book experience is integral to language literacy instruction and a useful activity for music teachers to use when teaching music through children’s literature (Cardany, 2013). Reading picture books aloud to children addresses the iconic and symbolic modes of understanding language as outlined by Jerome Bruner (1966, as cited in Cardany, 2013). “Children experience the iconic modes when they connect images to what they symbolize, and the symbolic modes when associating abstract symbols (i.e., letters, numbers, music notation) to their meaning” (Cardany, 2013, p. 39). Illustrations aid children in connecting the text with its meaning.
The structural components of a shared book experience were identified during the 1980s and 1990s when a whole language approach to teaching reading emerged (Westwood, 2005). After discussing cover art and title, the teacher invites children to predict what the story is about. Then the teacher reads the story expressively and without interruption. Following the first reading the teacher invites early readers to discuss the story and characters as well as interpret and reflect on the story. During a second reading children are encouraged to join in especially during repetitive text. The teacher then may direct children’s attention to other reading concepts such as spelling patterns, decoding, and word recognition.
Cooley and Cooley (1994) describe the shared book experience as a “bedtime story at school” (p. 1) that results in several positive outcomes; the experience is a bonding opportunity between students and teacher; students hear a model of fluent and expressive reading, teachers comment on illustration and text features to increase students’ understandings of story and vocabulary. Cooley and Cooley found that children with autism who experienced shared book activities demonstrated skills in prediction, language comprehension, and memory of stories.
Little Excavator is a perfect fit for a holistic and connected reading experience for children in preschool and first grade with guided support from a teacher. The repetitive text provides opportunities for early readers to connect words with text and derive meaning of those words with aid from the illustrations. Reading Little Excavator in a shared book experience approach may provide musical experiences of form with repetition of text. Also, the poetic text easily adheres to a rhythmical read further offering additional music experiences of beat, meter, and rhythm. The use of onomatopoeia, such as “thumpa-thumpa,” “whoosh-whoosh,” and “clang-clang,” invites children to explore their voices musically as well as work with phonetic awareness.
For an enhanced musical shared experience, sing the text to a melody. Music teachers should sing expressively and with a relaxed tempo to aid children making meaning of the sung text and have time to process the illustrations with the story. See Figure 2 for a composed melody that adheres to a phrase structure and aligns with the text. In the notated melody, note that the text has been purposefully truncated, with only enough text provided for music teachers to understand how the melody fits with the book.
Suggested melody for Little Excavator.
One of the purposes of the shared book experience for reading teachers is to track repetitive text and invite children to join in reading at that point in the story. Adding a melody to the rendition of the story provides music teachers with two melodic patterns for children to practice through invitations to sing when encountering the repetitive text. The two patterns are a descending melody mi-re-do, and do descending to la and returning to do. The whole steps and minor third found in these patterns are intervals that children in kindergarten and first grade may be expected to sing in tune with others as per the music curriculum; this activity will provide additional practice of these intervals.
After a couple music readings with the book, the music teacher may foster music literacy through language concepts. For example, separating words by syllables is an essential reading skill and helpful when perceiving rhythmic elements in songs and chants. Music teachers can aid children’s music and reading skills by listing the construction words from the book and discovering the number of sounds (i.e., syllables) for each word or phrase. Some construction words found in the text include big rigs, ‘dozer, excavator, loader, dump truck, backhoe, and crane. Dewdney illustrates words that are essential to understanding the story that are not found in the text. Teachers can prompt children’s higher level thinking skills by asking what the big rigs are building and what is Little E’s special task. These questions will prompt words such as evergreen tree, park bench, apple tree, fences, bricks, dirt, puppy, bridge, duck pond, water, and island. These are descriptive of the setting and describe aspects of the big rigs’ jobs and the construction task that only Little E can do.
Two extension activities for continued focus on music learning use an iconic mode of understanding for rhythm and pitch and are included here. Figure 3 provides children with practice reading rhythms using icons for short and long sounds (i.e., one sound on a beat and two sounds on a beat) and no sound on a beat. Figure 4 shows icons arranged in a manner for children to read melodic patterns (i.e., mi-re-do; do-la,-do; do-do-do; do-re-mi)—two of which are also patterns children are invited to sing in the melody composed for the book’s text.
The long and short bricks the Little Excavator must move.
The bricks the Little Excavator has moved.
To engage the children in reading rhythms using icons, project or print a copy large enough for all to see. Ask the children what they see, and lead them to connect the pictures to the story they experienced during a previous session. Identify the long and short bricks and have them say “long” when you touch a long brick and say “short-short” when you touch the short bricks. The grass icon represents no sound on a beat or a rest; have the children either breathe so that it is silent or say “swish” quietly to attend to the beat. Track and read each pattern as quarter (long), paired eighth-notes (short-short), and quarter rest (silence). Each pattern is labeled with a letter and a distinct shape to help children identify the line they are reading. If the students are using rhythm syllables, substitute those for the long and short sounds, or invite children to use onomatopoeic works found in the story like “bam” and “clang-clang.” To check for individual understanding, print and distribute a copy to each child. Tell them that it’s time to “challenge their ears.” Explain that you will play a rhythm pattern on a drum (or another nonpitched instrument) and have them put their finger on the excavator with an A, B, C, or D to show you what they hear.
To use the pitch activity, print the icons large enough for all to see or project the image on a screen. Ask the children what they see, noting that the images are related to the story. Suggest that Little Excavator has moved the bricks to create a pattern for them to sing. Sing the A pattern using a neutral syllable or pitch syllables if children are working with them and track it as you sing. Have the children echo the pattern and track it as they sing it back to you. The patterns are (A) mi-re-do; (B) do-la,-do; (C) do-do-do; and (D) do-re-mi. Sing in a comfortable range for children; F as do will work well for this. Progress from echoes to having children sing what you point to, and then invite individual children to sing a particular pattern. Similar to the rhythm activity, check for individual understanding by distributing a copy to each child. Sing a pattern and have them point to the line that shows the correct pattern.
Closing Thoughts
Dewdney’s Little Excavator is certain to be a favorite of boys and girls. The book offers opportunities to enhance literacy for music and reading. Making the shared book experience musical and using language concepts to aid children’s experience and understanding of music concepts addresses several music and language goals. National core music standards (NAfME, 2016) addressed by these activities include the performing standards for kindergarten (i.e., MU:Pr4.2.Ka & Kb) and first grade (i.e., MU:Pr4.2.1a and 1b) addressing the demonstration of knowledge of music concepts of pitch and rhythm, as well as analyzing patterns using iconic notation. Additionally, Common Core Standards (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2010) for English language arts addressed in the shared book experience described here include objectives for (a) key ideas and details, specifically asking and answering questions about key details in the text, retelling stories, and identifying major events in a story; (b) craft and structure, specifically identifying who is telling the story; and (c) integration of knowledge and ideas, specifically identifying characters, settings, and events; identifying words and phrases from the story; and describing how the illustrations and story are related.
Perhaps more importantly, the children experience a musical story about something they know and care about—the difficulty of growing up. The lessons described here aid music teachers in providing a meaningful encounter with that topic across the domains of music and language.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.