drumming

On Wednesday, we had a good citizenship reward at school. This one was so, incredibly cool. We had a drum circle. They brought African drums into our auditorium and each of our students got to sit next to one and play. The leader taught us a little about the drums and about drumming and then would show us a pattern and have the kids copy it. After awhile, he also called on kids to do their own pattern and everyone else would copy it. It was a lot of fun (the teachers got to do it right along with the kids). It was so neat to see the children working together, following directions and having fun. But it was also fascinating. Most of the kids were able to repeat the patterns, but for some it was very difficult. And what was so interesting about it was that there was an incredibly high correlation between the kids that struggled with drumming and those that struggle with reading. (And it wasn't just in 3rd grade that we noticed this. Our counselor, who arranged the activity, noticed this across the grade levels.) One of our first grade teachers has said for several years that she does a lot of singing and clapping in first grade. She has noticed that the kids that can learn the songs and clap in rhythm are usually the ones that learn to read most quickly. What does that mean? I don't know for sure. But perhaps having opportunities to sing, dance, listen to music while young helps children develop rhythm and rhythm is related to reading, particularly reading fluently. Perhaps the push to focus entirely on reading and writing and math in elementary school is really doing a huge disservice to our children (Okay not perhaps... it IS!) Our district music teacher (who works at several schools) does music therapy. She has taught kids with severe learning disabities and mental disabilities to read music, and some of them have learned to read afterward. Very interesting.