The Effects of Fine Arts Integrated Instruction on Preschool Students' Preschool Language Scale Scores
Topic Selection As a preschool special needs teacher, I am charged with providing specialized and individualized instruction to meet the needs of my students. All of the students on my caseload qualify in all five assessed areas: motor, language, adaptive, cognitive, and social skills. It is also important that my instruction be engaging and developmentally appropriate for my students. My students have shown a great interest in music and artistic activities. I am interested in using their interest in the fine arts as a means of instruction.
Research Questions of the Literature Review The literature review will address the following
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The curriculum emphasizes phonemic awareness, systematic phonics, oral reading fluency, requires the use of small groups, frequent performance feedback, and uses engaging arts- based interaction with students. In the beginning, students in experimental and control groups had similar reading levels. By the end of the Kindergarten, the program had a positive effect on phonemic awareness and systematic phonics. Between the groups, oral reading fluency had similar gains (Rose & Magnotta, 2012). Denac (2008), looked at the way in which preschool teachers show interest in musical instructional activities. Most of the teachers in his research preferred to use compact disk players to expose students to music. The sample of students were questioned concerning their music preference, data showed greater interest in listening to popular and folk music. Denac noted that the compact disk music used was not mainstreamed popular or folk music and that preschool teachers should pay attention to encouraging the interests of students (Denac, 2008). In a town near Bogotá, Colombia, mainstream music was used as a strategy to develop oral communication in a group of first grade English language learners. The six and seven year old students enjoyed the lesson and appeared to be singing along with the music. Upon further investigation, the students were not making meaningful …show more content…
The formative growth of preschoolers that participate in arts instruction. It was also shown that simply exposing children to music was not appropriate for the English language learner. Physical movements, including dance, are useful instructional tools for young children. It has also been seen that fine arts integration is effective in benefiting special needs students in various therapies within the school setting. It is clear that the integration of the fine arts is an effective instructional and therapeutic practice.
Action Research Plan
Background Information and Purposes of the Action Research Project Students within the classroom have all displayed varying levels of interest in music, dance, and visual arts. Classroom experiences have shown a greater level of interaction and attention with the teacher during these preferred activities. Fine arts integration has been shown to promote social emotional development, allow for self expression, improve young children's emergent literacy outcomes, and benefit therapy outcomes. Most importantly, the use of fine arts integrated instruction can be measured using the Preschool Language Scales (PLS-5).
Research Question of the Action Research Project Does the use of fine arts integrated instruction
Music, dance, drama, painting and drawing teachers try to incorporate academic lessons into their art classes. Students can be learning both art and academic topics at the same time. This can benefit the students extremely because it will not only engage the students in helpful activities, but it will keep them interested in learning the different topics. For example, schools may play music in the halls to introduce the students to culture that may help them to be open to learning new things in all of their classes. The painting teacher may have her student’s paint a picture of a historical event they learned about in their history class and discuss it in front of the class. The music teacher may ask the students to pick a certain song that reminds them of a book they read in their English class and explain to the class why the song reminds them of that certain book. The dance teacher might assign a dance to the students that will get them thinking of a subject to write their paper on for writing class. The possibilities are endless as to how to mix academics into the arts. It is important to do so to keep the creative juices flowing in the young minds of the students in public schools. By participating in an arts course, students are fueling their cognitive developments and are
When children participate in programs that provided fine arts, the arts help improve their cognition and social development. According to studies done by the article, Section III: The Arts Cognition, and Social Development, "An interest in a performing art leads to a high state of motivation that produces the sustained attention necessary to improve performance and the training of attention that leads to improvement in other domains of cognition." Because of the motivation that the fine arts gave to children, they were able to improve the attention needed for cognitive skills such as memory, logic and reasoning, and auditory. Furthermore, fine arts not only improve their cognition skills but also their social skills. In the reading, Section III: The Arts Cognition, and Social Development, "Students with lower socio-economic status who had sustained involvement in theatre arts were shown over time to have greater self-confidence, motivation, and empathy than did their non-arts peers, according to a ten-year national study of over 25,000 high school students." As a result, they are able to get out of their comfort zone and explore their surroundings. In addition, with the increases of motivation obtained by fine arts, they are able to achieve what they want with less fear of failure than
How does art and music help with language development? Imagine a classroom in which children sing every day, establishing singing as an important social and cultural experience in each child 's life. Singing is celebratory and social, establishing meaningful connections to children 's lives and experiences, such as birthdays, welcomes, sports events, and festivals (Ministry of Education, 2001). Researchers recognized that musical activities reinforce many aspects of language development. For example: chanting, rhythmic speaking, signing and listening are all experiences that help support language development. Speech is parallel to music elements such as contrast in pitch, dynamics, tempo, timbre and other expressive qualities. These
These benefits make it imperative that in all aspects of primary schools there is a great emphasis being placed on ensuring that the Arts are being integrated through all key learning areas. The benefits encompass “students having the ability to become problem solvers, creative thinkers, risk takers; to be more cooperate and independent in their learning and to seek self expression and a better self concept” (Burton et al., 1999 In Byrant, 2007). In today’s society, possessing these skills are vital. It is vital that primary schools are continually ensuring, that all educators are utlising the resources available when using the Arts through all key learning areas. Through this the importance of integrating the Arts is evident as students are provided to a “greater exposure and experience to assist develop these essential skills” (Byrant, 2007). On the other hand, it is important to understand that not all educators have a passion for the Arts. Due to this, there may be less of a focus on the Arts within the classroom, as those educators feel like they do not have the appropriate skills or background. Furthermore, students whom learn best through the Arts are more likely to disengage and lose interest in learning, as the Arts has not been integrated with other key learning
The Birth to Kindergarten Curriculum course prepares students to develop and implement curriculums that are developmentally appropriate for children of various age groups. Students enrolled in the course will develop lesson plans and unit plans for children ranging from infancy until third grade. According to the Birth to Kindergarten curriculum young learners should be exposed to a variety of fine arts which includes music, movement and dramatic play. Various times I have observed teacher candidates in various educational settings neglecting to address Fine Arts. Students are not experiencing quality instruction with the integration of music and movement, dramatic play and art history which can ultimately impact their success in future
The Washington Waldorf School outside of Washington D.C educates students from the age of three to eighteen. The school’s main goal is to influence its students with all forms of arts and music. In the preschool they aim for children to learn more individualistically; they spend their days outside in nature painting, drawing, and playing rhythmic games. All students are required to take art and music classes every year (Cecchi). The students at Washington Waldorf School are exceeding in most of their core classes as well. This approach to schooling is very beneficial and worthwhile to the students. Students need to be exposed to the arts throughout the entirety of their schooling. Washington Waldorf School has taken the arts to an extreme priority,
When I was working for Girls Rock Math– a summer camp that incorporates arts activities as a method of teaching math concepts with the intention to spark young girls’ interest, I noticed a significant increase in the girls’ interest when arts activities were present compared to when it was just plain math. The first and second graders in my class appeared to be much more excited about the subject and more concentrated when the teacher was trying to explain the instructions. This discovery makes me wondering about the influence of arts integration has on students learning. Defined by The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, arts integration is "an approach to teaching in which students construct and demonstrate understanding through an art form.” By integrating arts into core subjects teaching, educators are allowing students to learn through the arts, with the arts or accompanied by art lessons. In fact, arts education has been constantly associated with higher individual achievement.
Involvement in the fine arts program can help improve motivation, concentration, confidence, and teamwork (Bonnet). Art and music also develop important skills that many people usually overlook. They teach students how to sharpen their skills while all working together to a shared goal. It also strengthens memory, creativity, linguistic skills, empathy, and abstract thinking (Nymick). Along with those, musical education also provides children with a view of other cultures and teaches them to be empathetic towards other people and their cultures. The arts teach practical employable skills that potential employers look for, such as project management, team building, and effective time management to leadership, cooperation and collaboration
Most people are not aware of the advantages children have in after taking classes in the arts. These classes teach kids to be more
The Institute for Early Learning Through the Arts is a section of Wolf Trap, dedicated to providing kids with the proper artistic tools necessary to make learning easier and more efficient. Their mission statement is broad: “There is a wealth of research showing the efficacy of using the performing arts to engage children early and improve the way they learn. But these resources are frequently unavailable or under-utilized… The mission of Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning Through the Arts is to address this challenge in classrooms nationwide.” This means that the Institute is dedicated to providing artistic learning opportunities to children around the globe. The Institute has four main goals in the pursuit of this task. They want to
Developing the cognitive, communication and social skills of young disabled students is fundamental in the special education field. Different methods and tools have been used to achieve these things, such as painting, physical exercise and music. The latter is considered one of the most effective ways to improve the skills of young students with special needs (Brown & Jellison, 2012; Darrow, Standley, & Swedberg, 2007). Since 1988, various researchers have investigated the effectiveness of using music with disabled students. For example, in1996, a study by the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) examined the positive effects of using music therapy with young students who have special needs. However, the number of music studies with young disabled students is still low compared to the number of music studies involving other students (Brown & Jellison, 2012). Therefore, investigating the effects of using music with young disabled students is worthwhile and will help interested educators, therapists and teachers better understand the effects of music on these students’ learning and motivation (Brown & Jellison, 2012; Perry, 2003).
Studies show that students involved in fine arts did better than other students in math and reading. They also had greater social skills. Students involved in music programs scored 22 percent higher on english test and 20 percent on math test. Not only did being involved in fine arts help
The incorporation of music, movement, and the arts is critical to a young child’s learning, growth and development. Each of these creative arts allow children to make meaningful connections and retain the information being taught in the classroom. It also allows for children to focus more in the classroom and it improve their behavior as well. Multiple intelligences also play a role in music, movement, and the arts. By using these creative arts in the classroom, educators are able to adapt to children’s specific learning needs. Music, movement, and the arts appeal to all five developmental domains, including cognitive, physical, social, emotional, as well as language development.
Schools that offer fine arts classes have lower dropout rates and raised attendance. The fine arts positively impact students of lower socioeconomic status more those of a higher status. The fine arts have no barriers for race, religion, and culture when it comes to being involved in the arts. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to be involved (Katy Independent School District). Without the arts these students have no outlet for creative capabilities and no way to express their talents. Students who need this way of expressing themselves are overlooked and they are the ones who need it the most (Dickson). When viewing the participation of arts in the eyes of a ten-year old, “It cools kids down after all the other hard stuff they have to think about” (Arts and Smarts: Test Scores and Cognitive Development).
Children face many educational struggles while attending school, which could make schooling less enjoyable. Students attend school to learn and gain knowledge through standardized curriculum. The curriculum is mandatory for teachers to implement throughout the school year. Arts integration is designed to help the students with learning new material and to make the students feel less overwhelmed by school. Many people are affected by the outcomes of this issue and those include: students, teachers, administrators, and parents.