I have always heard that students who have some kind of a music background are smarter than "Normal Students". When the time came to pick a topic for my Honors Mentorship project, I knew that I wanted to find if this were in fact true. The driving force behind this whole project started with my essential question. "Does engaging students in Sight-Reading help their overall education?" In order to find the answer to this question, I wanted to gather as much research as I possibly could.
1. First I started gathering research by writing my annotated bibliographies. Each of the three annotated bibliographies, hold new information showing that music, in fact helped students in other areas of their education. Through writing these annotated bibliographies, I looked at several different researches, one in particular stood out to me. This study showed that music has positive effects on reading. Over the course of 8 months, students received music training in three areas rhythmic skills, tonal/melodic skills training, and auditory. Through this study I learned that Students were able to connect these rhythmic skills that they learned through music to language and reading. After writing these annotated bibliographies I learned that music in fact helped students in other areas of their education.
2. The next step into finding research, was to gather the teachers viewpoint of the effects of sight-reading. I did this in 2 different ways, first with a quick servery, then with an in depth interview with 3 different types of music educators. The quick survey was sent out to different music educators in Hall county to gather their opinions on sight-reading. Through this survey I was able to gather personal experiences of band directors, chorus teachers, and retired band and chorus educators. The interview was a more detailed way to gather personal experiences with sight-reading. I wanted to interview a band, chorus and piano teacher in order have a better range of data. All in all, I found that teachers also believe that sight-reading helps students in others areas of their education.
3. Finally, I wanted to gather the students viewpoint about sight-reading. In order to gather a range of students opinions I surveyed Middle and High school students. Through this quick survey, I was able to collect many students opinions on sight- reading. In the end, I found that students also believe that sight-reading does help them in other areas of their education, over a period of time.
In conclusion, Sight-reading does help Students in other areas of their education. From watching the students at my Mentorship I was able to see the side effect of sight-reading. At the beginning of the year, I could tell that the students did not enjoy this very difficult task, and because of this they lack focus. Throughout the year the students grew as musicians and also became more confident in their sight-reading skills. Now at the end of the year I can tell that this group of 6th grade students have become more focus when sight-reading and also have improved on their team working skills. Although this group of students have not had a lot of time in chorus, I believe that these skills will continue to grow throughout their chorus career.