Sound Stories: Using Musical Sound Effects to Support Children's Word Learning

• In Event: Sing, Play, Listen: Exploring the Role of Music and Sounds in Vocabulary Learning

Abstract

Combining direct instruction of word meanings with nonverbal visual aides, such as pictures and gestures, may assist children in learning novel vocabulary (Beck & McKeown, 2007; Rowe, Silverman, & Mullan, 2013; Silverman, 2007). The read aloud strategy provides an ideal opportunity to utilize both direct instruction and visual supports to foster word learning. Several studies have found that providing word definitions, using gestures, and pointing to corresponding illustrations during a read aloud may lead to higher gains in children’s vocabulary knowledge (Penno, Wilkinson, & Moore, 2002; Sénéchal, 1997; Wilkinson & Houston-Price, 2013). While read alouds that utilize direct instruction and visual supports may promote word learning, little research has considered the effectiveness of including nonverbal musical supports to the read aloud strategy. The present paper examines the effectiveness of a new interactive book reading strategy called a sound story, which uses nonverbal musical sound effects to support word learning. The study seeks to address the following research question: Do children show increased word learning when words are taught with an associated sound effect?
Data for the paper were drawn from four first grade classrooms in a Title I school (n = 53). Children in the study participated in three readings of the sound story during their general music class. Using a within-subjects design, all children were taught 6 definition-only words and 6 sound effect words. Prior to each reading of the sound story, the music teacher introduced the 6 definition-only words using a picture card and a child-friendly definition. The teacher then introduced the 6 sound effect words using a picture card, child-friendly definition, and an associated musical sound effect that represented the word’s meaning (e.g., playing up the bass xylophone to represent lifting up something heavy for the word hoist). Children were assigned to play one of the 6 sound effects whenever the associated word appeared in the text.
Receptive and expressive-definition vocabulary assessments were administered before and after the sound story intervention. Preliminary results suggested that children were able to learn definition-only and sound effect words in both assessments when compared to control words that were not taught (see Figure 2). On the receptive task, there were no significant differences between the pre- to post-test gains for the definition-only and sound effect words (t = 1.899, p > .05). However, on the expressive-definition task, results indicated that there were positive and significant differences between the pre- to post-test gains for sound effect words compared to definition-only words (t = 2.98, p < .01). Presentation will discuss high variability in scores due to English Learner status.
As indicated by the results, sound stories may be an effective approach for teaching vocabulary. Furthermore, the findings on the expressive-definition task suggested that associating sounds with words may have helped foster a deeper understanding of word meanings. As one of the first studies to investigate the effectiveness of sound stories, further research is needed to determine whether these findings can be replicated in larger sample sizes across different populations.

Authors

• Jessica Lawson, Vanderbilt University - Peabody College

• David K. Dickinson, Vanderbilt University - Peabody College