Teaching: Dancing Words

Daisy, an eight-year-old Puerto Rican girl, started to cry whenever her third-grade teacher began a reading lesson—but she grinned when the class sang to the tune of Frere Jacques: “Are you happy, are you happy?” Edward, a Negro first-grader, stared at his reader, eyes glazed—but he joined in when everybody sang, “Good night, room; good night, light; good night, window.” Nicky, a third-grader whose family had just arrived from Puerto Rico, grunted only a few words in class: “Yes,” “No,” “Thirsty”—but he flailed his arms along with the others in pantomime to “Fly with the angels soon in the morning; fly with the angels in that land.”

Today in P.S. 77, a Bronx elementary school in one of New York City’s worst slum neighborhoods, Daisy has gained 18 months in reading skill after just nine months of study. Edward proudly volunteers to read to his class. Nicky has caught up to the reading level of his classmates. They owe their progress to Principal Julius Levine’s unusual method of using music and dance to help kids learn to read.

A Sad Child. A stocky, ruddy-faced man of 57, Levine is a rarity in New York’s weary school system. He is a lawyer, a Latin expert, a Talmudic scholar and a musician. Notwithstanding those interests, he gives tireless attention to teaching, even after 34 years in the profession. One of education’s foremost functions, argues Levine, is “to build up the child’s image of himself,” and the foundation for that is to teach children to read. If they fail at reading, he says, they may fail at everything, and the child who cannot read “becomes a sad child.”

Levine’s notion that music and bodily movement could aid learning came from a curiosity about how people function in certain circumstances. “A good trial lawyer moves around in the courtroom to help himself think better,” he says. “I think better when I move around. My 12-year-old son does a kind of dance when he explains something to me. There is a physical accompaniment to a mental process.”

He applies that theory by getting his teachers to sing simple songs or to play phonograph records while pointing out words on big blackboard-size charts. The kids sing the words, get up and move to the rhythm of the songs, acting out the words with gestures. For example, they may “fly with the angels,” then “chatter with the angels,” “march with the angels,” “dance with the angels.” As they play out the roles, the teacher flashes the key verbs on cards, enabling the kids to connect sight, sound and movement.

Opening Rusty Locks. “The music and the body movements seem to channel their energy,” says third-grade teacher Rochelle Sheby. Adds P.S. 77’s assistant principal, Mrs. Mildred Stiller: “These kids are not afraid of learning to read, because they don’t know they’re doing it.” The technique also breaks down inhibitions. “It’s like a rusty lock,” explains Levine. “Put a key into it, and it won’t work. Keep trying, and it will loosen up and begin to function.” He is convinced that music is a key to learning to read. Since all the grades in his school began using the technique, the percentage of retarded readers there has been halved. In a nine-month trial, one class that employed the music jumped four months ahead of a class using standard methods.

The “music reading” program at P.S. 77 is no product of expensive research. It does not even have the backing of the school system’s headquarters. The records and charts were financed by a gift of $125 from the P.S. 77 P.T.A.