Effects of Hand Signs, Syllables, and Letters on First Graders' Acquisition of Tonal Skills

Abstract

In this study, I investigated the contributions of tonal syllables, hand signs, and letter representations of tonal syllables, as well as high and low levels of tonal aptitude and school readiness, to the development of verbal and symbolic tonal syllable skills of first-grade students. During Part 1 (17 weeks), all groups echoed tonal patterns with tonal syllables during the first 9 minutes of every class meeting—normally three per week. Group 1 echoed the patterns with tonal syllables only, whereas Groups 2 and 3 echoed and used hand signs; Group 3 also viewed letter representations of the patterns on cards. The patterns, randomly chosen from a 378-item list of three- and four-note tonal patterns, used the syllables do, re, mi, sol, and la; a range from C4 (middle C) to A4 was always used. During Part 2 (17 weeks), all groups echoed tonal patterns but also saw them written in noteheads on a staff. Every other class meeting Group 3 viewed letter representations on the staff instead of note-heads. A three-way analysis of variance of data from the Metropolitan Readiness Tests, the Primary Measures of Music Audiation (PMMA), and three singing tests showed no method to be significantly better for any group as a whole nor for a specific aptitude group. Only tonal aptitude, as measured by PMMA, had a significant effect on test scores.