Stop, Look & Listen
Composed by Ginger Clarkson
STOP, LOOK & LISTEN contains a series of songs and activities designed to assist special education and primary level classroom and music teachers in helping children increase their awareness of themselves and the world in which they live. Since children tend to enjoy music and to memorize melodies and lyrics quickly, these songs can be an invaluable teaching aide. The musical activities foster such cognitive skills as the identification of proper names, body parts, days of the week, and spatial directions; they encourage students to understand the world through their senses, and they promote basic social skills such as sharing and taking turns.
| Edition Number | WE8 |
|---|---|
| 10-digit ISBN Number | 849759242 |
| Publication Date | 11/21/1985 |
| Level/Grade | Elementary |
Description
The songs are easy to learn; they are brief and contain simple, repeated words and phrases. The rhythmic stress adheres to natural speech rhythms, and the melodies stay within a comfortable singing range. The lyrics refer to everyday concepts and basic motor activities. Predictable, traditional harmonies are replaced by carefully employed dissonances which have an awakening effect on the listener. Each activity entails some form of class participation - verbal, motoric or instrumental.
The levels assigned to each song - preprimary, primary and intermediate - do not correspond to grade levels, but indicate relative levels of conceptual and technical difficulty within this series of songs. The preprimary and primary songs are appropriate for normal preschoolers and kindergarteners, whereas the intermediate songs are suitable for older children in day camp or school settings. All of the levels can be useful in motivating young mainstreamed children who may need extra instruction in order to keep up with their classmates. By repeating the lyrics, students learn to develop oneword utterances into full sentences, and isolated motoric responses into movement sequences.
Each song includes a piano score and guitar/autoharp chord symbols and is followed by specific Teaching Objectives and Teaching Procedures. Instructors may prefer to tape the musical accompaniments in order to keep hands free for cuing or disciplining. (The tape recorder, of course, can be switched off to accommodate children who forget responses or make mistakes.) When accompanying these songs on the piano, it is important not to blur the sound with the pedal. The notes should be crisp and clear. Rhythms can be adapted as necessary to accommodate alternate lyrics (such as different names, body parts, numbers, etc.). When using Stop, Look & Listen, teachers can set high standards for their students; the goal of these activities, however, is not to achieve perfect musical performance, but to create enjoyable learning experiences.