Researchers at the University of Jaen and the University of Granada studied the link between rhythm and word reading in Spanish among children with and without reading difficulties. In the study, 131 first graders were randomly assigned to one of three groups receiving training on phonological awareness, rhythm, or both. For rhythm training, they used exercises based on reproducing the sequence of stressed and unstressed syllables of one or more words using the syllable “la.” In the phonological awareness-only or rhythm-only groups, mathematical exercises were also used so that the three groups were equal in the number of activities the participants had to do. The training consisted of 10 group sessions with 7–8 children, meeting for 30 minutes twice a week.
To assess the effectiveness of the training, the researchers used a measure of rhythm based on stress awareness (the ability to detect the stressed syllable). They also measured phonological awareness, and reading. They hypothesized that (1) the combined group would perform best in reading measures, (2) groups focusing on rhythm would do better in phonological awareness tasks than those focusing only on phonological awareness and (3) the relationship between rhythm and literacy would be influenced by phonological awareness.
What they found was that readers without reading difficulties who received rhythm training had a more significant improvement in phonological awareness, suggesting that rhythm training may help readers learn to pay attention to syllabic elements which then boosts phoneme awareness within the syllables. For struggling readers, however, rhythm training improved pseudoword reading, but only when rhythm and phonological awareness were trained separately.
StepUp Note
Rhythm is an important brain skill because it helps us know when something will happen, or when we have to do something. Rhythm is a key skill for practicing fluency, and fluency turns basic skills into tools for new learning. StepUp programs use rhythm to help students build fluency for math facts, decoding, and handwriting. Fluent handwriting, in turn, becomes a tool for new learning, for math and for written language.
Note by Nancy W Rowe, MS, CCC/A