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WEST VALLEY CITY -- Sixth-graders at Redwood Elementary School just finished their big end-of-the-year testing in science Wednesday morning -- and they got some help to the beat of Lady Gaga.
You may have heard the song "Just Dance" by Lady Gaga on the radio, but you haven't heard it like they sing it at this school.
The words are a little different to this song, but it's a hit among the sixth-grade students. It's called "The Milky Way," and besides being catchy, it's chock full of facts.
Marian Chertudi is the music specialist at the school. She's written four different songs about science for these students.
"Mostly I take what the kids have to know, and take all the vocabulary and try to put as much of it in a song as I can," Chertudi said.
"It's funner than being in class, sitting there for like an hour writing stuff down," said student Jose Adama. "It's Lady Gaga, it's way cool."
"I focus more on curriculum and integrate music into what I do," Chertudi said.
The kids get about an hour a day with her, and she makes learning fun.
Sixth-grade teacher Diane McKee said, "Us teachers, we are so focused on teaching them the core we take the fun out of it."
McKee says the kids have to learn so much information for their Criteria Reference Testing, or CRTs, it's nice to see them smile.
"They not only learn, but they are having a great time also," she said.
And McKee knows it's helped her students in their testing.
"One of the questions had something to do with planets, and I was like singing it," said student Rose Boswell.
"Hopefully I aced it!" Jose said.
And for some students, like Jose, he says when Lady Gaga's real song comes on the radio, he turns it off and sings his version.
But this kind of music activity doesn't just help when learning science concepts. According to Rachel Lee Nardo, a professor of music education at the University of Utah, more than 3,000 studies have shown that music has a positive effect on spatial-temporal reasoning.
"These terms refer to understandings of relations of ideas and objects in space and time," she said. "Spatial skills impact very basic human capacities, especially understanding spoken and written language and mathematical problem solving."
Nardo says research has shown that rhythm appears to support ease of fluency in reading words. A study at Florida State University used a software program called "Sing in Tune" -- similar to what Chertudi is doing at Redwood Elementary. The study shows an increase in reading fluency scores by up to one grade level in 16 weeks.
So, setting new words to old music might have this same positive effect on word fluency, vocabulary development and development of eye tracking of read text.
All the students at the elementary school get time with the music specialist, not just sixth-graders. Marian makes up words to similar, age-appropriate songs for first graders up to sixth.
E-mail: abutterfield@ksl.com
