Jeremy Spartzand and two of his teachers talk about how the Lyrics2Learn program fuses music with research-based strategies to improve fluency, comprehension, and background knowledge. An interview conducted by Dr. Sam Bommarito

“The three R’s- Rhythm, Rhyme and Repetition”

Jeremy Spartz

I’ve written before about reading programs based on the work of Dr. Tim Rasinski, who is widely known for his research on the efficacy of repeated readings and the value of teaching fluency to bridge the gap between decoding and comprehension LINK. A number of successful programs have their roots in those ideas LINK, LINK, LINK. Teachers in these programs are artfully teaching the science of reading. Among these programs is Jeremy Spartz’s Lyrics2Learn program. Lyrics2Learn fuses music with research-based strategies to improve fluency, comprehension, and background knowledge. Here is what Jeremy wrote when I asked him to describe his program:

Lyrics2Learn description: Lyrics2Learn is a K-5th grade online reading supplement. It hosts hundreds of leveled educational texts set to rhythm and rhyme, featuring an animated reading guide named Lefty Lyric. Lefty guides them through individualized lessons aligned to each student’s needs. By fusing music with research-based strategies to improve fluency, comprehension, and background knowledge, kids have fun fluently mastering stories as they work through repeated, choral and modeled reading practice. Additionally, the repetition, rhythm, and rhyme enable significant retention of information from the text. This enables more effective comprehension strategy instruction. As students become more familiar with weekly stories through repeated reading, comprehension questioning becomes more complex to push levels of understanding. The more kids know, the more they can show! Read to the rhythm!  Before listening to what he and his teachers had to say about the program and their implementation of it, let’s find out a little bit about their background.

BIOGRAPHIES

Jeremy Spartz: Jeremy is the teacher and founder of Lyrics2Learn, a music-based online reading fluency and comprehension program. He grew up in Minnesota (SKOL!), graduated from Concordia College, and moved to Colorado, where he was a classroom teacher at an elementary school. For 15 years, he taught multiple grade levels, tutored, and coached. While teaching, he became interested in reader’s theaters, student-led poetry slams, phonics songs, and writing-level educational stories in iambic pentameter to aid reading fluency instruction. This method soon evolved to include rhythm, rhyme, repeated reading, modeled, and choral reading. This music-based reading strategy improved fluency, comprehension, vocabulary, and background knowledge while significantly increasing his students’ engagement. Soon, the fluency program was combined with targeted foundational skill instruction during tutoring sessions with tier 2 and 3 students. Their success in closing the gap, combined with the enjoyment students expressed, the confidence they gained, and his principal’s support, led Jeremy to evolve the program into what is now Lyrics2Learn. 

Katie Ackerman:  Katie is a Teaching and Learning Coach, assessment coordinator, and runs the intervention programs at a Title I school in Colorado Springs, CO. She also taught K-2nd grades for 12 years. Katie has a bachelor’s degree in literature, a Master’s degree in Elementary Education, and a Master’s Degree in Reading Assessment and Curriculum.

Mary Gregory-Jones Mary (MJ) Gregory, has been an educator for 31 years. She has a BA in English, Secondary Education, grades 6-12 and a Master’s in Reading for K-12. She has taught high school, middle school, and elementary. For the last 16 years served as a district-level Literacy Specialist and a K-8 school Curriculum Coach/Reading Specialist in North Carolina.

Lyrics2Learn has proven itself to be a highly successful supplemental program. Have a look at the results posted by the Marisco Institute for Early Learning and Literacy (N=986):

LINK to the PDF of the Marsico study

LINK to website information about research around using music in reading

Here is a link to the YouTube interview:

Link to Lyrics2Learn:  https://lyrics2learn.com/

“Fluency is the bridge to comprehension.”

Tim Rasinski

Thoughts About This Interview

I visited the website and found that it was very user-friendly. Setting up for the students I tutor was a breeze. Help on the site was done using pop-up videos. It was like you had your own personal tour guide during the setup. During the interview, Jeremy, Kate and Mary described all the resources. I think your students will find the songs/readings engaging. The heart of the program is that it provides repeated readings. It does so in the spirit of reading to perform. Each entry is read three different times. The comprehension checks are gauged to fit the reading, becoming progressively more demanding as the students read the text for additional times. The management system for tracking student progress is outstanding. The program is designed to be a supplement. It is currently being used by over 2,000 teachers who are helping 20,000 students nationwide.  So as we already discussed, it is a very successful program.

There is an important nuance to how Rasinski’s ideas are being implemented in programs like this. Fluency is being taught (not just practiced). In one of my upcoming blogs, I will explore the importance of that idea and talk more about some programs that are already implementing that approach. In my opinion, this turns the whole concept of how we think about fluency/prosody on its head. Fluency is not just the result of comprehension. Fluency can be taught so that it becomes the cause of improved comprehension. Rasinski has said on many occasions that fluency is the bridge to comprehension. Upcoming blogs will closely examine how some teachers are helping to build that bridge for students to cross over.

After looking at the issue of fluency, I will then continue to explore what other teachers say about the best ways to teach reading. Most importantly, I’ll explore Bruce Howlett’s and Jan Wasowicz’s attempts to find common ground. Instead of looking at what we disagree on, Bruce and Jan focus on what we can agree on LINK, LINK. No one will benefit if the current situation “devolves” into another pendulum swing. Let’s use the new year to find common ground by exploring both the art and science of reading instruction, using research-based ideas from all sides. Doing that may create a time when there are no sides.

In addition, I’ll be busy over the next few weeks presenting my ideas at various conferences, including LIT CON 2024, The WSRA Conference, The MHRC Mid-Hudson Reading Conference and the Write to Learn Conference. Each of these conferences has a wide range of speakers with many worthwhile ideas to consider. I hope to see you at one or more of these conferences. I hope many of you consider the centrist call to use common sense to seek common ground as we continue exploring the best way to teach reading and writing. In the meantime-

Happy Reading and Writing.

Dr. Sam Bommarito (aka, the guy in the middle taking flak from all sides)

Copyright 2024 by Dr. Sam Bommarito. Views/interpretations expressed here are solely this author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other person or organization.