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"Our experience has shown that collaborative action researchers who rush to complete the problem formulation stage are more likely to flounder in their later efforts, whereas teachers who take time to reflect on and define their problem are more likely to pursue questions yielding meaningful results," (Sagor, 1992, p. 12).

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The Midwest Clinic is a band and orchestra conference. It also provides professional development opportunities for band and orchestra teachers, in addition to articles by leaders in the field. The attached article discusses ways to promote music literacy in instrumental music classes.
Manfredo, J. (n. d.)

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The Midwest Clinic - Literacy Strategies for ...

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The Midwest Clinic will premiere many new events and products, along with stimulating clinics, inspiring concerts, and unrivaled opportunities to network wit...

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National Association for Music Education (Nafme) promotes music education advocacy, research, and professional development for music teachers.

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NAfME believes research is a central component of the work of the association and our members. One of four building blocks of the Association's Strategic Plan, Research is supported in our association by two Societies and highlighted at a biennial research conference.

The 2018 NAfME Senior Researcher is Dr. Harry Price.
Past Event:
2018 Biennial Music Research and Teacher Education National Conference
March 22-24, 2018
Westin Peachtree Plaza, Atlanta
210 Peachtree St NW
Atlanta, GA 30303

The next biennial NAfME Music Research and Teacher Education National Conference will take place in Kissimmee, Florida, November 5-7, 2020.

The National Association for Music Education (NAfME) Society for Research in Music Education (SRME) seeks to encourage and improve the quality of scholarship and research within the music education profession. The SRME consists of all subscribers of the Journal of Research in Music Education (JRME). Visit the SRME page to access information about the Journal of Research in Music Education,Update: Applications of Research in Music Education, SRME/NAfME research grants, Special Research Interest Groups (SRIGs), state research chairs, conference research, senior researcher award recipients, the SRME Handbook, the Code of Ethics, and the SRME Executive Committee.

The National Association for Music Education (NAfME) Society for Music Teacher Education (SMTE) aspires to

Improve the quality of teaching and research in music teacher education.

Provide leadership in the establishment of standards for certification of music teachers.

Serve as an arm of NAfME in influencing developments in music teacher education and in the certification of music teachers.

Visit the SMTE website for the latest information and to access the Teacher Evaluation portal. Also read SMTE's publication, Journal of Music Teacher Education (JMTE).
Executive Committee of the Society for Music Teacher Education Areas of Strategic Action and Planning workgroups of SMTE
Other Research News and Studies of Interest

Music Education Related Data Reports

Dashboards with music education related access data:
State level arts education census reports, including access to music education:

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NAfME believes research is a central component of the work of the association and our members. One of four building blocks of the Association's Strategic Plan, Research is supported in our association by two Societies and highlighted at a biennial research conference. The 2018 NAfME Senior Researcher is Dr. Harry Price.

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Students come to music with varying levels of English Language Acquisition. How will I help my beginning English Language Learners who speak little or no English, learn to read music?

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"Action researchers undertake a study because they want to know whether they can do something in a better way," (Sagor, 1992, p. 7)

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"Successful teaching is a mixture of art and craft honed through experience," (Sagor, 1992, p. 2).

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Mills, G. E. (2011) Action research: A guide for the teacher researcher. New York, NY. Pearson

Sagor, R. (1992) How to conduct collaborative action research. Alexandria, VA. ASCD

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Possible strategy for note-naming/reading practice.

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Games for Teaching Students to Read Music Notes : Flute & Clarinet Basics

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Learning activities for reading music by Denise Gagne, a highly respected music education specialist, clinician, and curriculum developer.
Gagne, D. (2016)

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This post is all about fun ways to teach children the letter names of the notes.When you play an instrument, it's a very useful skill to know the name of the note on the staff so that you know which of the bars you should play!To be a good sight-reader, you need instant recall.You can't be counting the lines and spaces on your hand staff if you want to be a fluent sight reader.So how do we get kids to develop fluency in reading music?

There is a great staff lesson in lesson one of Musicplay 4.

The Staff: Music is written on a 5 line staff. Notes can be placed on lines or inspaces. The lines and spaces are numbered from the bottom to the top. At the beginning of a staff, a clef is given. The treble clef circles the note G, and is used for treble, or higher notes. A high pitch is shown by placing a note high on the staff. A low pitch is shown by placing the note lower on the staff.

I like to start by introducing the lines with the hand staff. Draw a staff on the board about the size of your hand. Then, hold your hand up to the staff and point out that you have five fingers, just like there are five lines on the staff.

Hand Staff: Show the students the hand staff. Hold your hand in front of you with your fingers spread apart and the thumb up. Number your fingers 1-2-3-4-5 from the bottom to the top. Tell the students that they have five fingers, just as there are five lines on the music staff. To show the spaces on the hand staff, place the index finger of your right hand between two fingers. Spaces are also numbered from the bottom to the top. Call out a line or space and have the students point to the correct one. For example:line 3, space 4, line 1, space 2

My hand fits nicely on my cookie sheet staffs, so kids see the relationship between your hand and the staff.If you don't have cookie sheet staffs, draw the lines on the board.

Some teachers like to have the students practice naming notes on lines and spaces. Make up poems or sayings to help them remember the names of the notes. For example: The notes on the lines spell, "Every Good Boy Does Fine." Kids can make up their own sayings.Some of the best I've heard are "Elvis's guitar broke down Friday" or "Empty Garbage Before Dad Flips."The notes in the space, spell "face."

I like to move from notes on lines and notes on spaces to the full staff quickly.They won't be fluent readers by practicing lines only or spaces only.When they understand that the notes go step by step from letter to letter, CDEFG, they are on their way to fluent reading.

I introduced the staff, taught the hand staff, practiced notes on my cookie sheet with a grade 3 class, then had them play the first 7 songs from Teach Music Reading with Boomwhackers.In a 30 minute lesson, they were able to begin to read the notes and to play Jingle Bells on Boomwhackers.The projectable for Teach Music Reading with Boomwhackers includes an introduction to the staff and the songs include a version with alpha-notes or kids notes:the letter name is imprinted on the note AND a version with colored Boomwhacker notation.Even so, I was very pleased that the studentswere able to read simple songs in just one lesson.

Link to Teach Reading with Boomwhackers USA site Link to Boomwhackers Canada site

Floor Staff Games: Use painter's tape to put a giant staff on the floor. Painter's tape won't hurt the carpet and will last for a week or two until you've taught the staff games to all your students. If you have funding available, you can purchase a music rug to go on the floor that has a staff built into it. Visit www.musicplay.ca to see a music rug. Additional staff games are givenin the publication "Staff and Symbol Games." Link to Staff and Symbol USA site L ink to Staff and Symbol Canada site

1. Staff Jump
An elimination game to learn the names of the lines and spaces. Have half of your students stand on line one. Call out a line for them to jump to - line three! line four! The last student to get to the correct line is eliminated. Have the other half of your students jump to the spaces. When you introduce the letter names of the lines and spaces, repeat the game using letter names.

Group one will jump the lines on the music staff. The teacher calls out a line note - E, G, B, D, F - and the students jump to the line that she calls. To play this as an elimination game (optional), the last child to land on the line that is called is out. The last child left after the eliminations is the winner. Group two will jump the spaces on the music staff. The teacher will call out a space note name - F, A, C, E. If groups are small, repeat the note names and jump as needed until all the children have had a turn. When the students are very confident jumping lines or spaces, have each group jump to the note name that is called using both notes that are on lines and in spaces.

Divide the class into two-four teams. On small paper plates write a letter name of a note - A B C D E F G. Each team is given a pile of notes. Teams race to place their notes on the correct line or space of the floor staff. The first team finished with ALL notes correctly placed wins.

When beginning recorder, you can introduce the notes one at a time.This really helps the students to "get it."After introducing BAG, I have start having the students complete mad minutes to practice just those notes.Isolating the notes I want them to practice helps them become fluent reading those notes.

MAD MINUTE SAMPLE
Mad Minutes are included in the Recorder Resource Kit, with a new mad minute for each new note that is introduced. The note name mad minutes are used for the same reason that teachers use math mad minutes. Children will only learn to read music well if they have instant recall of note names. I shrink the pages 50% so I can fit two on a page, and double-side them to save paper. We do each mad minute twice before going on to the next level. For evaluation, I cut the tops off the mad minutes so that the answers are removed. I also drill note names with the class sized flashcards. I begin the mad minutes before the students have their recorders. I allow three minutes to complete each mad minute. I time the students, and they try to beat their own best time - not race each other. When they finish, they call "done" and I tell them how many seconds they took. If a student needs more than three minutes to complete the sheet, I give them a sheet for practice at home. Several teachers have told me that they put the mad minutes into sheet protectors and the students write on them with whiteboard markers and erase and reuse when completed.

I've helped in the design of two apps for practicing note names:Note Name Match Game and Note Name Smash.

Note Name Match Game is a memory game with 10 levels - spaces, lines, staff, ledger lines - in both treble clef and bass clef. In Note Name Smash you can choose the notes you want to practice. Each note that's correctly named smashes a hole in the wall. When all notes are correctly names, the wall crumbles - fun!!!

Our new online resource, www.musicplayonline.com has several interactive ways to practice naming notes.Musicplayonline is free to use until Aug.1 and then it will be a low cost subscription.If you or your school has purchased the Musicplay Digital resources, you will be eligible for a pro-rated credit to use the site at no cost.There will be an application posted on the site in August when it goes to the paid model and you can request free access.Each situation will be different, so every application will be looked at individually.

Pop Quizzes - these are fun and funny when the balloon pops!Students drag the correct letter to the balloon (that has the note) and each correct answer makes the balloon bigger.When all notes are correctly named, the balloon pops.Students drag letters to name the notes; then they drag notes to name the letters.

In this interactive activity, students drag a basketball to the net or a soccer ball to the net to name the notes in a reading song.If using this for the first time, be aware that the programmer made the upper left corner of the net the anchor for the note.As long as you have the correct note, and you touch that upper left corner, the note "sticks."If it's the wrong note, it flies away. Note Name Challenge Activities

If you do centers in your classroom, the Music Center Kits 1 and 2 each include a note naming game.These colorful board games are easy to set up as centers and provide students with yet another way to practice naming notes.Have you played the battleship game?If you have, then note name battleship works the same way.On the top of the board place the notes that are your ships.On the bottom half of the board, you mark where you've guessed your opponents notes are placed.An incorrect guess turn the note over - a correct guess you mark with note facing up.The note name version of battleship goes a lot faster than the traditional game which is great when you have 30 minutes music classes. Music Centers

Note Name Battleship

Note Name Bingo
Note name bingo includes both treble and bass clef - great for teachers who want to teach both.

This collection of 56 reproducible worksheets will give you a wealth of activities for practicing letter names.I like to make booklets of activities for my sub tub.It's also great to have booklets made for when you do recorder testing.It's also an alternative activity when a child is not able to participate in regular activities in music classes. Know Your Note Names

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This post is all about fun ways to teach children the letter names of the notes.When you play an instrument, it's a very useful skill to know the name of the note on the staff so that you know which of the bars you should play!To be a good sight-reader, you need instant recall.You can't be counting the lines and spaces on your hand staff if you want to be a fluent sight reader.So how do we get kids to develop fluency in reading music?

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This YouTube channel provides video introductions and step-by-step beginning note reading demonstrations/practice strategies for beginning band instruments (clarinet, flute, trumpet, trombone, percussion). Students could use these for guided practice sessions at home when they are practicing learning their notes, providing extra support when a teacher is unavailable.

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Bryant Allard, Director of M.U.S.E. Instrumental Programs, uses this interactive video to help young trumpet players play the correct pitches on their first 5 notes.

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"Research studies are built on trust between the researcher and the participants, and the researchers have a responsibility to maintain that trust, just as they expect participants to maintain it in the data they provide.  Two overriding rules of ethics are that participants should not be harmed in any way--physically, mentally, or socially--and that researchers obtain participants' informed consent," (Mills, 2011, pg. 35)

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Do I choose one or two fifth-grade class to try these interventions and compare them to the learning results of my traditional band 5th grade classes?

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Music note reading games. Can be played by individuals for practice, or as a whole class for full-group practice.

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Play this fantastic game to learn the notes on a musical stave. How many points will you score?

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Disciplinary Literacy in the Arts Tip Sheet. 8 Step model for building literacy skills in the arts.
Palkowski, J. (2011)

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Will I have enough contact time with students to accurately measure and monitor their progress for this topic?

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Some students do not have access to practice space outside of music class. How can I help provide those students opportunities to grow their skills without needing to play their instrument

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Students go for a week between music classes. How can I ensure they are practicing key literacy skills outside of class?

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How will I get approval? Do I need to have a letter translated into Arabic for my ELL families?

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music literacy and skill acquisition in fifth-grade beginning band students