909804

research-article2020
GMTXXX10.1177/1048371320909804General Music TodayDunbar and Cooper

Article
General Music Today

Speaking the Same Language: How the 2020, Vol. 34(1) 14­–20
© National Association for
Music Education 2020
Kodály Method Promotes Disciplinary DOI: 10.1177/1048371320909804
https://doi.org/10.1177/1048371320909804
journals.sagepub.com/home/gmt

Literacy

Laura Dunbar1 and Shelly Cooper2

Abstract
Educators are consistently asked to show their students’ literacy levels; however, the traditional definition of literacy
is typically limited to a strict interpretation of reading and writing using text rather than notation. Disciplinary literacy
expands the definition of literacy, allowing music educators to teach disciplinary-specific symbology. This article
describes how the Kodály concept helps students process sound into symbol, which provides students with specific
literacy strategies to convert sound into developmentally appropriate visual representations.

Keywords
disciplinary literacy, elementary general music, Kodály, music education, present process, secondary general music

Education is steeped in acronyms and terminology, with
different terms synonymous or similar. This is especially
true in the area of literacy, where teachers may reference
specific reading strategies, literacy strategies, and com-
prehension strategies to help students process content.
The National Reading Panel (National Institute of Child
Health and Human Development, 2000) defines compre-
hension strategies as “procedures that guide students as
they attempt to read and write” (pp. 4–40). Reed (2009)
deemed this definition synonymous to reading strategies
or cognitive strategies. These definitions often align with
literacy strategies, as the literal definition of literacy is
“the ability to read and write” (“Literacy,” n.d.).
According to Parr and Campbell (2012), this definition is
supported by the education system, thereby “telling us
what truly counts as literacy in today’s educational sys-
tem” as evidenced by standardized testing (p. 561). The
Oxford Dictionary (online), however, provides a second
definition for the term literacy: “competence or knowl-
edge in a specific area.” This definition aligns with the
concept of disciplinary literacy (T. Shanahan & Shanahan,
2008).
shared, and evaluated” (pp. 86–87). The second defini-
tion of literacy accounts for context within the target dis-
cipline and how professionals in that discipline read,
write, and communicate information.
When we think about text in music education we are
obliged to broaden our view beyond the traditional print-
based text that often permeates the core of our educational
curriculum such as written lab reports in science, essays in
language arts, and time-honored textbooks. (Moxley et al.,
2012, p. 234)
Teaching students to be literate in music includes reading
and writing symbolic notation, reading a music score,
interpreting conducting gestures, and listening to sound
(Moxley et al., 2012). Listening to sound and determining
the rhythms and pitches occurring, followed by writing,
is commonly known as dictation in the music field. Clay
(2001) has defined the reading process as “a message-
getting, problem-solving activity” (p. 1), in which stu-
dents search for and receive verbal and perception
information, take the information to make decisions,
monitor and verify the decisions, and respond. It is the

What Does It Mean to Be Literate in 1

University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire, Eau Claire, WI, USA
Music? 2
University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, NE, USA

The first definition of the word literacy is extremely lim- Corresponding Author:
Laura Dunbar, Department of Music and Theatre Arts, Haas Fine Arts
iting. C. Shanahan (2012) states that “much of how read- Center 258, University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire, 121 Water Street,
ing progresses depends on knowledge of the discipline in Eau Claire, WI 54702-4004, USA.
terms of how information in that discipline is created, Email: DunbarLL@uwec.edu
Dunbar and Cooper
complex networking that that makes literacy processing
possible (Clay, 2001).
Children have a natural propensity for music develop-
ment through rote and aural/oral experiences, whereas
music literacy development is dependent upon scaffolded
experiences that match a child’s developmental stage.
Emergent literacy (Clay, 2001; Purcell-Gates, 1996;
Sulzby & Teale, 1991) is the collection of skills and atti-
tudes children accumulate related to reading and writing
before formal instruction. In this sense, emergent music
literacy includes experiences that are precursors to the
skills and knowledge children need before conventional/
standard notation and specific definitions. Young chil-
dren often “read” pictures of stories before they are capa-
ble of reading the words. Anstey and Bull (2000) define
“reading the visual” as the ability to make meaning from
pictures. Music educators can build on the common
ground between the two literacy activities of reading text
and reading music notation. “Between three and seven
years [of age], children begin to build a foundation for
literacy learning which underpins what follows in formal
education” (Clay, 2001, p. 11). During this critical time
period, music educators need to provide literacy activities
at developmentally appropriate levels to build a founda-
tion for future reading of standard notation. For example,
children can “read the visual” of notation as portrayed in
icon cards and nontraditional forms of notation before
having the ability to make meaning of standard notation.
This necessitates that all iconic representations and
manipulatives used for emergent music literacy or “read-
ing the visual” must be clear, accurate, and reflective in
order to lay the groundwork for future learning of stan-
dard notation.
How the Kodály Concept Teaches
Literacy
Kodály posited that folk music was more suitable for
children as they were “not fabricated or contrived for
pedagogical purposes. The language of folk music tends
to be simple, drawn from speech patterns familiar to chil-
dren even before they enter school” (Choksy, 1999, p.
15). Folk music becomes the vehicle by which music
educators help students decode the musical messages
they have been receiving. This “music message decod-
ing” relates to how a child decodes in the written lan-
guage. “The child needs to learn how to compile or
construct new words out of what [they] already know
about words. Constructing a particular word on several
occasions creates familiarity, and ultimately leads to
knowing it in every respect” (Clay, 2001, p. 16). Children
require purposeful repetition using multiple modalities to
create that sense of familiarity to promote literacy in any
discipline, including music.
15
The Kodály Method is a comprehensive, broad-based
approach to music education that draws on the best of past
pedagogical practice. It is developmental, experiential, and
highly sequential. Its primary goal is to develop a love of
music supported by understanding and knowledge—musical
literacy in the most profound sense. (Choksy, 1999, p. 17)
Choksy (1999) outlined a four-stage process to promote
music literacy: prepare, present, practice, and assess (p.
171). The prepare, present, practice sequence is based on
a child development approach rather than subject logic,
as it takes into account a child’s cognitive abilities at vari-
ous ages. “The child-developmental approach to sequence
within a subject requires the arrangement of the subject
matter into patterns that follow normal child abilities at
various stages of growth” (p 10).
Preparing for Music Literacy
Preparation transpires as students are being “prepared” or
exposed to new music elements through music experi-
ences in a subconscious manner. This often occurs
through singing and playing singing games, for “until a
repertory of known and loved songs exists in the child’s
own experience, little meaningful conversation about
music can take place” (Choksy, 1999, p. 20). Prepare
involves the unconscious priming of the mind using kin-
esthetic, aural, and visual examples of a music element
through the inherent joy of music making (Houlahan &
Tacka, 2015). For example, a teacher preparing quarter
rest could include the following kinesthetic preparations:
•• Students find the rest in a song such as “Peas
Porridge Hot” (see Figure 1) with their bodies.
Students clap on parts of the song with sound (text)
and keep hands apart when there is no sound (no
text).
•• Students play a game with a song such as “Bow
Wow Wow” (see Figure 2) and pass a stuffed ani-
mal dog on the beat. Although the sound will stop
in the song because of the quarter rest, the stuffed
dog will still be passed.
Because students are singing while exploring the quarter
rest, aural preparation is also inherent in these examples.
However, sufficient examples must be provided of the
quarter rest in both aural and kinesthetic modalities.
Visual representation is included the preparation pro-
cess using icons (pictorial representations), as students
are not ready to use the symbolic representation of the
quarter rest until it is made conscious in the “present”
(see Figure 3).
Visual information is picked up at high speed by the brain;
we perceive objects directly. However, perceiving the
16
Figure 1. “Peas Porridge Hot.”
Figure 2. “Bow Wow Wow.”
symbols of language is different. The event symbolized is
arbitrary, ruled by conventions and not naturally given.
Learning to look at language symbols and knowing what to
look for is a beginning task for the literacy learner. (Clay,
2001, p. 146)
Icon cards allow students to see, manipulate, and per-
ceive the element of quarter rest in alternative ways. In
the example provided, students identify sounds corre-
sponding with long and short sounds through large and
small frogs. The small frogs, purposefully sized to be one
half the size of the large frogs, show the proportional
sound relationship of the quarter note and paired eighth
notes. The rest is made visible with the water splash,
showing that the beat continues even when a pitch is not
General Music Today 34(1)
aurally present. Students hear the teacher sing/play a pat-
tern and are asked to recreate that pattern—whether using
icons or, later, traditional notation. If written incorrectly,
they must then consider “alternative possibilities” in what
they have constructed upon listening to the teacher sing/
play the pattern again. Using manipulatives allows faster
processing of alternatives. In addition to viewing the
existing song’s elements, students can compose new pat-
terns using the cards.
When the eye and ear and hand are jointly involved in the
management of a task they send three different messages to
the brain, messages picked up by different senses . . . Russian
developmental psychologists demonstrated how much
children at an earlier stage of development need such joint
Dunbar and Cooper
Figure 3. “Frog in the Millpond” song and icon cards.
involvement as a precursor to being able to use their eyes
alone to do the searching at a later stage. (Clay, 2001, p. 16)
Active processing in kinesthetic, aural, and visual modal-
ities during the preconscious “prepare” stage helps chil-
dren process sounds they will one day follow as
symbology on the music staff.
The “Present” Process
After students have experienced the quarter rest in various
ways, they are ready to have the term quarter rest labeled
as a music element with its corresponding music symbol
using the “present” (/pree SENT/) process. The present
makes children consciously aware of how the new ele-
ment transfers to standard notation. The “making con-
scious” process is facilitated through teacher questioning
that leads children to locate the new element, resulting in
guided discovery. First, the teacher facilitates students
labeling all known elements in a known folk song; stu-
dents would have already experienced this folk song in the
preparation stage. In the song “Naughty Kitty Cat,” the
rhythm pattern primarily consists of quarter and eighth
notes (see Figure 4). The students recognize these rhythms
as known music elements. After writing beat lines on the
board to show students the number of beats in the song,
the teacher guides students in dictating the song’s rhythm
by having students label the quarter notes and eighth
notes. Typical questions used to guide students include
“how many sounds are on this beat” or “because of ‘how
the words go,’ how many sounds are on this beat?” The
teacher addresses only known rhythm elements, which
17
means intentionally focusing students’ attention toward
the beats with the known sounds through questioning.
Once students have determined all known rhythms, three
open beat lines (i.e., silence) will remain. The teacher then
guides the students to compare what they know (quarter
notes and eighth notes) with what has not been defined as
an element (the beat of silence). Once students have felt
the beat while simultaneously hearing the silence on the
empty beat line, the teacher will explain one beat of
silence as a quarter rest and show the quarter rest in its
symbolic form (standard notation). The next lesson will
review and practice the new element within a new context
(e.g., a different song containing a quarter rest for students
to label).
Teachers who use the present process frequently find
their students begin to anticipate the steps of the “pres-
ent” process. These students have learned how to com-
pare unknown elements to known elements; therefore,
they are utilizing a systematic process to connect the
known to the unknown. In the example above, students
are asked to set up the context of the new element rather
than the teacher labeling the known information. This
process confirms for the teacher that the students can take
known sounds to symbols; students are cognitively ready
to successfully add another notation symbol to their rep-
ertoire. “Acquired knowledge is the most useful to a
learner, moreover, when it is ‘discovered’ through a
learner’s own cognitive efforts, for it is then related to
and used in reference to what one has known before”
(Bruner, 1997, p. xii). The students do the “cognitive
heavy lifting” as opposed to the teacher restating what
has been covered in previous classes.
18
Figure 4. “Naughty Kitty Cat.”
Figure 5. The guided discovery process during a “present” as paralleling the perceiving of language symbols.
When students begin anticipating the steps of the pres-
ent, they can essentially process faster and independently.
They use this system to isolate, identify, and describe the
unknown element, which they can label once the teacher
provides the academic music term and symbolic repre-
sentation (standard music notation). “The process of
manipulating knowledge to make it fit in new tasks”
(Bruner, 1977, p. 48) can be completed only if students
are able to process elements sequentially and conceptual-
ize what makes the new element different from previ-
ously learned elements.
Clay (2001) notes that perception psychologists
identify that several stages occur when searching
and determining symbol representation during acuity
(p. 157). Clay states there is expectancy, which leads to
directing attention to a symbol followed by comparing
General Music Today 34(1)
and discriminating among alternative possibilities.
After the brain rejects or discards illogical answers,
probable responses are “trialled or checked” before
determining a final decision (p. 157). This parallels the
guided discovery implemented during the present stage
in the music classroom, with children searching for
clues among known entities to determine the unknown
element (see Figure 5).
Contextualizing the New Element
When reading notation, students are asked to orient to
the symbols, search for information within the symbols,
work with the “music language” code, make decisions,
as well as how to do all these things efficiently and
accurately.
Dunbar and Cooper
By definition, successful readers . . . can work at problem-
solving the hard parts of the texts while also rapidly
processing most of the messages. They have built effective
processing systems which allow them to read and problem-
solve known words in new texts and new-to-them words
encountered for the first time. They can work aloud or
silently. (Clay, 2001, p. 49)
Working silently in music education would align with the
term audiation, where students hear the sounds in their
mind prior to performing them aloud.
Although quarter rest has been prepared and pre-
sented as an element, the newly conscious element must
now be placed and discovered in new contexts. This
could include finding the quarter rest in other folk songs
and rhythm patterns derived from song repertoire or cre-
ated by students. Existent rhythms patterns must origi-
nate from the song repertoire, not merely be created to
contain every possible rhythm combination. Children are
encouraged to read the cards as patterns or “chunks,” not
individual notes. This is similar to reading words with
children learning the pattern of “dog” through phonetic
practice, but once learned a child no longer has to sound
out each individual phoneme and reads the letters as a
“chunk.” Having students create rhythms using the quar-
ter note allows students to expand their creativity,
increase engagement, and make new connections.
“Instruction should provide learners with opportunities
that are open-ended, allowing the learning to surprise the
teacher and expand any aspect of his or her existing
knowledge” (Clay, 2001, p. 12). The practice stage of the
Kodály concept allows for students to assimilate the new
element within the context of known elements. During
this stage, teachers typically include repertoire that pre-
pares the next element in the sequence, thus beginning
the cycle again.
Music Education and Disciplinary-
Based Literacy
“Disciplinary knowledge is knowledge of the breadth
and depth of a field of study, including knowledge of
the way information is created, shared, and evaluated”
(Shanahan, 2012, p. 71). Music educators teach stu-
dents how to engage in and with music, which requires
interaction with sounds and symbols. The Kodály con-
cept provides students a systematic process by which
students can take unfamiliar sounds, compare them
with known symbols, and discover a new sound and
symbol. The process, in and of itself, helps students
become literate in music symbology, which is consid-
ered a disciplinary-specific text according to Moxley,
et al (2012).
19
[A]voidance of developing reading as an access point to
learning about a discipline guarantees that many students
will not build disciplinary knowledge without access to an
intermediary—a well-informed and experienced expert—to
tell them and show them what they need to know” (Buehl,
2014, Chap. 4)
Teachers show students how to think and read symbology
throughout the Kodály concept, thereby developing disci-
plinary knowledge and the ability to read music notation
in new contexts. This processing provides students the
tools to be musical independently—a goal in a holistic
music education.
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.
ORCID iD
Laura Dunbar https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7259-9460
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Author Biographies
Laura Dunbar is currently the Elementary Music Specialist
and the Music Education Coordinator for the University of
Wisconsin–Eau Claire. She also teaches Kodály Level II
Pedagogy for the Nebraska Kodály Certification Program.
Shelly Cooper teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in
music education at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and
coordinates the Nebraska Kodály Certification Program.