Little Victories - Making Music with Special Needs Children
By Mike Reinstein
Introduction
I was the music teacher for six and a half years at Oaktree, an all-age school for children with moderate learning difficulties in North London.
This article attempts to describe something of the experience of making music with special needs children in their early years, the value of the work and some ideas to try in lessons. I begin by outlining my approach to classroom singing followed by some thoughts and ideas for exploring other elements in music.
Children in special needs settings have a wide variety of disabilities. The ideas presented here are general concepts and strategies that may be applied to many special needs groups.
Beginnings
When I began my work at Oaktree it soon became clear that the guiding principles of the school - to raise self-esteem, to create positive self-image and relationships, to encourage the safe expression of feelings and to value differences - would also underpin my music lessons.
I decided that I would make singing the central activity as a way of getting to know the students, to establish warm and working relationships and as a means of assessment. Of course, as time went on other elements were introduced to the sessions: exploring instruments, listening to sounds and creating compositions but singing remained at the core of the work.
We’re singing a song about finding a grizzly bear in the fridge - Ben makes a monster’s face at the right moment. In another song, where the class say hello to each other, Albert has learned to “sign” his name and is now able to do this with increasing confidence. Peter, very rarely for him, vocalises in a song about a ship. In a song about rabbits, everyone in the class picks up the musical cue and starts to jump around the room; shy Althea is the Chief Rabbit and tells the other “rabbits” to “Get back to your burrows!”. They all sit down. Everyday, Ellen quietens to a call and response song, Sanibonani - it stops her crying.
Why sing with Special Needs Children?
Singing with children who have special learning needs is full of such moments - little victories won through the power of music - and is an activity that carries enormous benefits. Apart from learning the basic elements - pitch, duration, volume etc, there are also opportunities to develop cognitive processes such as turn-taking, eye-contact, co-operation, listening and language skills, memory and socialization. Singing sessions often involve movement so that there is always the chance to improve co-ordination and motor skills. Then there is the subject matter of the songs themselves; always useful for supporting areas of study in the curriculum. Finally there is singing itself: a wonderfully creative act in which the body is used to make joyful sounds and to communicate meaning.
Appropriate songs
When I first arrived at Oaktree I found that there weren’t enough appropriate songs available, particularly for the adolescent end of the school. You might not want to sing “Wheels on the Bus” when you’re 19! For the younger pupils there was an already established repetoire but I felt that there was a need to compose songs with a more contemporary approach that connected to the topics and ethos of the school. My wife and I began to write together, using our knowledge of pop, folk and blues music to inform our compositions. It was an exhilarating but rigorous experience to “road test” the songs with the children and they let us know directly which songs they preferred! Eventually we collected twenty of the songs, organised them into the subject areas that one might find in a typical primary curriculum and created The Tommy Tomato Songbook.
Ideas for classroom singing
- Seat children in a circle: this arrangement helps eye-contact and creates an inclusive atmosphere.
- Welcoming beginnings: begin the lesson with a song that welcomes everyone; it should be a simple song so that the children immediately gain in confidence. For example, “Hickerty-tickerty bumble bee, Can you sing your name for me?” Those who can verbalize sing “nnnnn is my name” individually and the group respond, “nnnnn is her name”. Children who can’t verbalize “sign” the initial of their names.
- Make the lessons interactive: choose some songs that create interaction between the teacher and the group. For example, in “Old MacDonald Had A Farm”, the teacher asks the children to name different animals to include in the verse. This kind of song develops vocabulary and memory and encourages turn-taking.
- Use an amplifier and microphone: children love to sing into one and it can really help those children who find verbalizing a problem. If you can find suitable “call and response” songs, the microphone can help the teacher to assess listening skills and articulation.
- Call and response songs: there are many around that are lovely to use in lessons. For example, Che Che Kuhle from Ghana, a song I learned at a Judith Brindle workshop, or Sanibonani from The Tommy Tomato Songbook. The rhythmic patterns created by the words can be transferred to percussion instruments and children can take turns in leading the rest of the group.
- Use actions: movement to music improves co-ordination and sensitizes learners to language rhythms. Whenever you can, use actions to illustrate the lyrical content of the song. Dancing is also fun!
- Use pictures: these can be used to reinforce the words. Recently, I sang “Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport” with a group of reception age children. As we sang the song, the children held up pictures of the animals and objects mentioned in each verse: the koala, the cockatoo, the platypus, the digeridoo etc.
- Use props: when singing a lullaby, for example, provide each child with a doll or soft toy to cuddle. Objects held by children become the focus of “projected play” and facilitate engagement with the song. Objects associated with particular songs can be kept in a “Song Bag” so that when they’re removed from the bag the children know which song they’re going to sing.
- Tape record sessions: children can listen back in class during the week following the session. They enjoy hearing themselves sing and it’s also a good way of reinforcing the songs.
- Goodbye songs: always end the lesson with a finishing or goodbye song. This should be a time for calmly winding down.
Exploring other musical elements
If singing represents the earliest form of communication - between carer and baby - then exploring musical activities can be seen as part of the developmental process. Just as singing has attendant benefits, this work too can also address important learning areas for the special needs child: gross and fine motor skills, body and spatial awareness and learning how to be still and engage. It’s also an opportunity to extend creativity, to find meaningful ways of connecting to others both emotionally and expressively and to discover what the pioneering music therapists Nordoff and Robbins describe as the “music child” within.
Ideas for exploring musical elements
- Structure: the welcoming song marks the beginning of a musical session and heralds more singing or movement, listening or playing instruments. Repeating activities at the same time of day and in a consistent order is a way of creating security and achievement (they know what’s coming!) for the child. Visual cues - pictures indicating the activities stuck on a board - can also be helpful.
- Using musical instruments: don’t make too many available as too much choice can be overwhelming. Allow time for exploration of the instrument - your pupils might play with it in all sorts of interesting ways! A useful game involves putting out some instruments in the circle while a bean bag is passed around to this song: “Choose an instrument you can play, you can play, you can play...” When the song stops, the holder of the bean bag chooses an instrument and plays it while the rest of the group sing, “Peter plays the tambourine, tambourine, tambourine... (or triangle, cabassa etc)”.
- Chants to rhythm: teach the children a simple chant. This is one I learned from a group of Zimbabwean drummers who ran workshops at Oaktree: Vooka, tea, tanganda, coffee. (Vooka and tanganda are beverages). Clap along to the syllables using whatever time pattern you prefer, then use percussion instead of claps. Eventually the group plays the pattern without chanting the words.
- Identifying musical instruments: place some instruments in the centre of the circle. More instruments are placed behind a screen just outside the circle. The teacher/LSA/ pupil goes behind the screen and plays an instrument. Pupils in the circle then decide which instrument is being played and select it from the ones in front of them.
- “Don’t clap this one”: clap simple rhythms and ask the group to copy you. After 4 or 5 repetitions say, “don’t clap this one” and then clap your rhythm again. With any luck they won’t copy you! This is a useful warm up exercise.
- Dynamics: ask a child to leave the room. An object is hidden somewhere in the classroom. The child returns and tries to find the object. Each member of the group has a percussion instrument and plays it as the child searches - loudly for close proximity and quietly for far away. You can substitute humming for percussion if you’ve had a hard day...
- Pitch and rhythm: this is a lovely couplet that I picked up from one of Steve Grocott’s workshops:
“Deep in the deep the shark never sleeps,
Little fishes swim away for to live another day”
Begin by reciting the first part with the children using deep voices and then do the second part in falsetto. Transfer this to instruments, beating out the rhythm of the deeper words on drums, the higher pitched words on triangles and bells.
- Conducting: devise a series of gestures that signify loud, quiet, start, stop, fast and slow. Appoint a “conductor” who has mastered some of these movements to stand in front of the group to conduct them as they sing a song or play their instruments. This can be developed by marching round the room to the beat of a drum played by a child or teacher. At a given signal everyone freezes; at another cue everyone starts to move again.
- Pulse: clap along to the beat of a song or rhyme. This is one of my favourite rhymes - another one from Steve - and is best done standing up with lots of appropriate movements:
Grandma, grandma sick in bed
She sent for the doctor and the doctor said,
“Grandma, grandma you ain’t sick
All you need is a walking stick”.
Hands up shake, shake, shakety shake
Hands down shake, shakety shake
To the front, uh-huh
To the back, uh-huh
To the s-s-side
To the s-s-side
She never went to college and she never went to school
But I bet you a dollar she could wiggle like a fool!
- Listening: listening to soothing music might feature as a way of bringing a session to a close. Active listening - asking the children to respond to music by identifying instruments or creating a story or drawing - encourages direct engagement in the experience.
Making music with children who have special needs is a rewarding experience for both teacher and pupil. It’s a joyful way of addressing basic skills, learning about the world and increasing self confidence.
As The Beatles once wrote, “All together now...”
With thanks to Jackie Dillon from Oaktree School for her suggestions.
