Music as an educative enrichment medium for the remediation of children with reading problems
The primary focus of this dissertation was work with a group of children who were experiencing problems in reading and to formulate strategies which incorporates an innovative approach using music. Many learning problems encountered today could be avoided if children's earliest backgrounds were rich in songs, poems set to music, nursery rhymes and musical games. It is necessary for a child to experience rhythm in every possible way to enable him to read with a flowing rhythm and a pleasant intonation. A child must be able to feel and experience the rhythm of the spoken word by repeating rhymes, phrases, chanting children's names, for example. This is done by tapping the word, using body movements (clapping, stamping) and transferring this rhythm to percussion instruments while experiencing the speech rhythm. Many approaches have been used with children who are disabled readers and none use music as a tool. The progress of these children has therefore been slow, tedious and not always successful. Music has not been used before as an approach to assist children with reading disabilities. In this dissertation it has been proved that music helps children overcome their reading problems, as it is the only approach which offers total involvement of the child and therefore the best results are achieved. All children involved in the research enjoyed the activities and derived great pleasure from performing them unaware that the process of remediation was taking place.
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