| This investigation replicated and extended a study conducted by Medina (1990). The study examined the effect of music on the acquisition and retention of story vocabulary for kindergarten and first grade students in a selected school in eastern Pennsylvania. A second factor, the support of illustrations, was also examined with the music treatment. Qualitative data focusing on student motivation and engagement was also collected during this investigation.; This study examined both the short-term and long-term effects of music and illustrations on vocabulary acquisition through the use of a pretest, post-test, delayed post-test design. Each subject participated in every treatment option through the utilization of four separate stories.; The treatment conditions included: (1) No music, no illustrations (story spoken without illustrations); (2) No music, view illustrations (story spoken with illustrations); (3) Music, no illustrations (story sung without illustrations); (4) Music, view illustrations (story sung with illustrations).; Two gain scores were reported for each subject for each treatment. Two, two-way analyses of variance (ANOVA) were conducted, one for each set of gain scores for each treatment. Gains were examined between low, average and high readers within the various treatments and across each of the four treatments. A significance level of .05 was utilized.; No statistically significant results were found in this study regarding the effect of the musical format on vocabulary acquisition. However, the qualitative data yielded some pertinent results. The treatments that included the music format and the use of illustrations appeared to be more motivating for students and engaged them deeper in the learning sessions. It may be that the use of music added a sense of enjoyment and interest to the activities as revealed in the qualitative data. When paired with other respected teaching techniques, the use of music and illustrations could be an effective tool to promote and increase vocabulary growth and student learning, particularly for those at the beginning stages of learning to read. Exposure to story songs takes relatively little time, but can yield useful results not only in student academic growth but also in motivation to learn. |
