The Effect of Teaching Elementary Reading and Writing by Means of Music on First Grade Student’s Writing Skills, Writing Speeds and Writing Errors
Authors: ŞAHİN Burak , BAY Yalçin 
Published: July 2022

Learning to read and write is one of the most basic and necessary skills of every individual. Being able to learn this skill well requires a good first reading and writing education. Effective realization of teaching process of elementary reading and writing, which is the beginning and most important step of education, is of critical importance for our children who are still in the age of play. Many different methods are used when teaching children in today's age, who have a very short attention span and get bored very quickly from their activities. When the literature was scrutinized, in the teaching process of elementary reading and writing, it is striking that there is no study on teaching elementary reading and writing with musical content, and the existing musical content is far from creativity and academic basis. This research was conducted regarding this need. In the research, 29 children's songs were written and composed by the researcher in order to better recognize, feel and distinguish the taught sound, to be applied in the teaching of each sound at the stage of feeling, recognizing and distinguishing the sound in the teaching process of elementary reading and writing. At the end of the research, the impacts of children's songs on students' writing speed and ability to obey writing rules were determined.The research was carried out in a primary school with a middle socio-economic level in the province of Eskişehir, in two 1st Grades, the experimental and the control group. The experimental group consisted of 24 students and the control group consisted of 19 students. Embedded (nested) mixed design was utilized as a method. While the unequal control group model, which is one of the sub-fields of the quasi-experimental model, forms the basis of the research, it is also supported by qualitative research methods. While the students in the experimental group were observed two to three days per week for 4 months, the writing status of the control group was recorded at the end of each month. The data obtained during the observation were recorded in the 11-item of "Writing Skills Observation Form" and analyzed with the Excel program at the end of the research. While no intervention was made to the control group during the observation process, the teaching process of elementary reading and writing was completed by using 29 children's songs written and composed by the researcher for 29 letters in the experimental group.When the elementary reading and writing teaching process was completed and the students in the experimental and control groups became literate, their writing skills were evaluated in four different dimensions: (1. Writing by looking, 2. Writing what is being said, 3. Writing what they understand, and 4. Writing their opinion on a subject). The data obtained from these evaluations were interpreted by converting them into Tables and Charts. In addition, research diaries were included in a chronological order throughout the process so as to better convey the music-assisted elementary reading and writing teaching process.As a result of the research, there was an average of 34% difference between the two groups in the 11 items calibrated in the "Writing Skill Observation Form" in favor of the experimental group. In the writing speed tests evaluated in four dimensions for three minutes, it was found that there was a difference between the two groups in favor of the experimental group: 27 letters in looking writing, 61 letters in writing what was said, 44 letters in writing what they understood, and 14 letters in writing their opinion on a subject.