An investigation of the effects of instructional programs of choral reading and singing on language achievement, reading achievement, and oral language development of sixth grade students

The purposes of this study were to determine the effects of instructional programs in choral reading and singing on language achievement, reading achievement, and oral language development. A sample of 92 sixth grade students from a Knox County elementary school were assigned by the entire class, to one of three instructional treatment classes. The Choral Reading and Singing Treatment Groups were taught to read chorally or sing a series of song lyrics which were selected by the investigator according to a sequential order of increasing syntactic complexity; the Control Group received instruction in physical education activities which were selected by the investigator as a placebo language treatment. Instruction lasted for eight weeks, 90 minutes per week for each group. Prior to instructional treatment, the language and reading subtests of Form A of the l973 Edition of the Stanford Achievement Test, Intermediate Level II, were administered to all the students. Based on this pre-test data 18 students were selected for oral language analysis. At the conclusion of the investigation, two low achieving students, two average achieving students and two high achieving students from each of the three groups were shown some pictures to describe or discuss orally, and their speech was tape recorded, transcribed and analyzed. Also, all students took the standardized post-tests, which consisted of the language and reading subtests of Form B of the l973 Edition of the Stanford Achievement Test, Intermediate Level II.

The pre-test and post-test scores were statistically analyzed by Analysis of Covariance. The results of this analysis indicated statistically insignificant gains by the Choral Reading and Singing Treatment Groups.

The transcribed oral language data were analyzed and described, and results indicated that instruction in choral reading may encourage quantitative fluency of speech, and that instruction in singing may facilitate accuracy and precision of speech.

The gains in language and reading achievement scores were interpreted to indicate that instruction in choral reading and singing results in statistically insignificant improvement in language or reading achievement; however, exceptional gains were noted for both choral reading and singing treatment groups.