Every issue of Music Alive! is carefully developed to support both the MENC National Standards for Music Education and the literacy reinforcement required by the No Child Left Behind Act.

You can teach from our ready-to-use curriculum with confidence, knowing that you are:

• helping your students to develop many important skills
  
• preparing your students for standardized tests that will affect their future
  
• facilitating increased state funding for your class and for your school at large
  

MENC National Standards

Each Lesson Plan in our monthly Teacher's Guide is structured around learning objectives that are keyed to specific MENC National Standards. Whether the magazine article you select presents ragtime or rap, the Black Eyed Peas or bebop, you'll have guidance about how to teach a lesson that is rich with listening, singing, performing, and evaluating exercises. We incorporate musical terms, musical elements, and simple theory and notation into both our Lesson Plans and our Classroom Worksheets. And we relate our music coverage to important aspects of history and culture—because we believe that's part of what keeps music alive.

No Child Left Behind / Literacy

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act was designed to help all students in this country succeed. In exchange for increased federal funding, NCLB asks states to focus much more intensively on reading and math performance. Now, more than ever, literacy reinforcement is considered a crucial component of all classes desiring NCLB funding—even music classes.

Music Alive! offers literacy reinforcement on many different levels. Special LitLinks in each Lesson Plan call your attention to each of the following types of reinforcement:

• Silent and oral reading of our magazine articles reinforces basic reading skills and improves awareness of good word choice and grammar.


• Oral reading opportunities also help students develop speaking and listening skills, and reinforce phonics and phonemic awareness.


• Highlighted vocabulary (always defined in the Teacher's Guide) reinforces both vocabulary and fluency.


• Frequent opportunities for students to analyze and evaluate music reinforce comprehension.


• Music Alive! Classroom Worksheets provide in-class writing activities that further develop vocabulary, fluency, and reading comprehension.