Mentor Artist Hannah Dworkin writes about her work in Glenwood Elementary’s Special Day Classroom
We had a wonderful 10th year together in Rockne Beeman’s upper elementary special day class, and this year we had an extra special outcome with one of our students. This student, who I will call Leah, has minimal language skills and does not read, but she responds incredibly well to rhythm. Through a series of scaffolded rhythm based activities, Leah was able to identify, name and perform rhythmic phrases. She and her classmates also really loved our new song choice board pictured below.
The steps that lead to her breakthrough are as follows: aurel exercises with rhythmic phrases familiar to the students; visuals that integrate music notation, pictures that represent the previous familiar words and the words written out; move to color coded visuals with only the music notation.
The familiar words I use are “Pepperoni” for 4 sixteenth notes, “pizza” for two eighth notes, “pie” for one quarter note, and “cheese” for one half note.
This year we were also visited by students from mainstream classes through a reverse integration model. It is amazing to see the increased engagement of the students in the special day class when their peers from other classes join them. This year we noted that they participated with greater depth, were more willing to incorporate dances and displayed fewer behaviors when these children joined our music and dance sessions.
