Marion Long and Susan Hallam, of the Institute of Education at the University of London, discuss how rhythmic exercises can improve children's reading comprehension.

Years ago, a group of children for whom reading and maintaining concentration were problematic volunteered to begin cello lessons. The usual elementary stages of learning to play the cello quickly proved too demanding but stamping in time with a metrical pulse immediately engaged the group's full concentration. Their desire to establish rhythmic control and regularity in stamping was impressive; the group worked together to achieve a collective metrical pulse.

By coordinating clapping and then chanting, with the well-established stamping action, the abilities of the group developed. Reading notation, and learning scales and arpeggios, became straightforward extensions of the stamping exercises. An above-average standard of fluency, coordination and ensemble skills were noticeable and eventually the group chose to sing rather than chant during the exercises. They also reported that their schoolwork had improved. As a result of these observations, our research set out to investigate whether stamping, clapping and chanting can help children to improve their reading.

We began by assessing the effect of the stamping exercises on the reading behaviour of 72 mainstream schoolchildren, aged eight to 11 years, from three different schools. The children's reading was tested using the Neale Analysis of Reading. This test scores reading accuracy using miscue analysis (in which the tester notes any words that are omitted, refused, mispronounced, substituted by another word, or provided as an additional word). Reading rate is given as words per minute and reading comprehension requires both literal (the answer is stated clearly in the text) and inferential (the reader uses clues in the text to deduce the answer) answers.

Participants were assigned to two groups of equal reading capability. One group took part in stamping, clapping and chanting activities linked with music notation for 10 minutes each week for six weeks. The other group remained in their normal lessons. The test was then re-administered and changes in the children's reading scores were calculated. The change scores for the two groups were compared.

We found that an overall improvement in reading comprehension occurred in the experimental group. Children in this group who had scored below the mean average in reading comprehension made statistically significant improvements in their reading comprehension scores when they were compared with children of matching ability from the control group. However, they showed no overall change in their reading accuracy score or in their reading rate when compared with the control group. These findings suggest that stamping exercises and their further development into other rhythmic activities can help children of below average ability in reading comprehension to improve their reading comprehension score.

While reading fluency often develops naturally, a proportion of children remain static in their literacy development, permanently reading at a word-by-word level. In keeping with some writers on literacy development, we have noticed that improvements in prosodic reading (the rhythmic element in reading that is associated with reading poetry) appear to be linked with improvements in reading comprehension.

Reading fluency is probably dependent upon timing processes operating in the cerebellum area of the brain. When these timing processes work well, the brain is able to segment words and extract meaning from them. These timing processes appear to be regulated according to rhythmic meter. Reading becomes both fluent and meaningful when a regular metrical rhythm is present in the voice. Our research suggests that by practising metre in movement, later accompanied by the voice, we may stimulate metre in reading.

Improvement in rhythmic stamping can be promoted by the teacher and through group work. A child with a weakness in stamping may find it helpful to place their feet further apart than usual and stamp next to a child that finds the exercises easy to do. Musical accompaniment, available on a CD, provides the momentum and the structure for the sessions.

To date, the work with the children has been conducted by one of us. We are currently working with two schools to investigate whether our findings are sustained when we are not involved in directing the exercises. They will instead be directed by a music and art coordinator with a whole class of 18 children; and by two learning support assistants from an English department, each working with six children. All 30 of these child participants are known to experience difficulties in reading and learning. We expect our findings to be available in 2005.

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