A music education program with language arts lessons to improve reading comprehension skills

This research was designed to make a contribution to the field of education as it relates to improving students reading comprehension skills. The research examines the integration of music with language arts lessons to improve reading comprehension. A music education program was developed and given to middle school chorus students. The research question to be answered from this study is as follows: Can a Music Education Program Incorporating Language Arts Lessons Be Used To Improve Reading Comprehension Of Eighth Grade Students?; This program provided a nine-week curriculum and was taught during regular scheduled chorus classes. The targeted population for this study was identified by a pretest designed to measure reading comprehension skills. Only chorus students who scored below 80% were considered as candidates for this study. All students were randomly assigned to two groups, Experimental and Control. Students in the Experimental Group were given the language arts lessons, song lyrics and instructed on how to listen for messages in the song lyrics. The teacher reinforced the language arts lessons by giving additional information about the composers. Participants in the Control Group were given the language arts lessons and the song lyrics only. Both groups met three times a week for 1½ hours for chorus class for nine weeks. During the class the students in the Experimental Group completed the language arts lessons. Both groups were allowed to sing and listen to the song lyrics as a chorus activity.; The data that was collected from the study was subjected to a nonparametric equivalent to the T-Test, the Mann-Whitney U that showed significant gains in reading comprehension with the use of music with language arts lessons.