Music and poetry are two of the earliest and most natural ways children experience language, rhythm, rhyming, and expression. This article explores how songs, poems, and repeated musical reading support fluency development while offering practical ways teachers can use music and songs to strengthen reading and writing in PreK and elementary classrooms.
Songs are often a joyful part of the elementary school day, but they are also a powerful literacy tool. When children repeatedly sing and read lyrics, they naturally build reading fluency, strengthen concepts of print, and develop early writing awareness. Research and classroom practice show that rhythm, melody, and repetition help young learners move from decoding words to reading with confidence, expression, and ease (Iwasaki et al., 2013; Rasinski, 2014).
Reading fluency includes accuracy, automaticity, phrasing, and expression. Songs naturally support all four components because they combine rhythm, repetition, and predictable structure.
When children sing
Because songs must be performed in real time, students learn to keep up with the beat and text together—an early form of fluent reading.
Research on fluency instruction highlights that repeated reading improves both accuracy and comprehension, and performance-based approaches like reader’s theater, poetry performances, singing, and reading aloud can strengthen fluency outcomes (Hudson et al., 2005; Young et al., 2016).
Repeated singing and shared reading also strengthen essential early literacy skills, especially concepts of print.
Through shared song experiences, children learn
directionality (left to right tracking)
one-to-one word correspondence
understanding that print carries meaning
recognition of spacing, lines, and return sweep
awareness of punctuation and rhythm in text
As students sing and follow along with text, they begin to internalize how print works in a natural and developmentally appropriate way.
Music also strengthens phonological awareness, the ability to hear and manipulate sounds in language.
Songs support this by
Research indicates that musical rhythm and language processing share overlapping neural mechanisms, supporting early literacy development (Fiveash et al., 2021; Patel, 2010). These features make songs especially effective for early learners developing foundational sound-to-print connections.
In addition to songs, rhythm-based language experiences such as raps and beatboxing can further deepen students’ phonemic awareness. Like songs, these forms of expression rely on rhythm, repetition, and sound manipulation—but they also invite children to actively create language patterns using their voices and bodies. Beatboxing, for example, uses the mouth, breath, and articulation to produce drum-like sounds and rhythmic sequences, helping students become more intentional about how speech is formed. Because every sound can be shaped, repeated, and varied, students naturally explore phonemes in a highly engaging and embodied way. These experiences support the same foundational skills as early reading instruction—hearing, isolating, and blending sounds—while making sound play interactive, creative, and deeply memorable for young learners.
One innovative classroom method used by Stephen Thompson, an elementary music teacher in Eugene, Oregon, begins with music before text, allowing students to internalize rhythm and melody before encountering words.
A typical lesson sequence includes
This structure aligns with findings that repeated exposure and scaffolded reading improve fluency and memory retention (Shanahan, 2020). By the time students see the text, the musical structure already supports their reading fluency.
First grade teacher Rebecca Iwasaki from Danbury, Connecticut found that introducing and practicing two to three new songs each week with her students (always with the lyrics presented visually) resulted in all her students reading at grade level or above by the end of the year.
Teachers can use songs in simple, repeatable ways that build fluency over time.
Research in literacy and cognitive science suggests that music and language share overlapping neural pathways. Rhythm, timing, and pitch processing in music are closely linked to phonological processing in reading development.
Key findings include
Songs naturally integrate these elements into a single, engaging instructional routine.
One of the most powerful outcomes of song-based reading instruction is how quickly young children develop print awareness.
Through repeated singing and reading, students begin to
Research shows that repeated exposure to shared texts supports early print concept development in preschool learners (Galeza, 2021; Uhry, 2002).
Songs can be used across grade levels.
Even without formal music training, teachers can use repetition, modeling, and shared reading routines to support fluency development.
Songs offer a powerful bridge between early literacy skills and fluent reading. They help children move from hesitant decoding to expressive, automatic reading through rhythm, repetition, and joyful engagement. When students sing, they are performing music and practicing reading fluency in its most natural, social, and memorable form.
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