An Attitude and Approach for Teaching Music to Special Learners

An Attitude and Approach for Teaching Music to Special Learners is a valuable reference guide and text for music teachers who instruct students with special needs. Based on years of practical teaching experience, Sobol begins with the basics of classroom setup and management and moves on to musical literacy, the National Standards for Music Education, special education law, and teaching critical thinking skills. Throughout her book, Sobol consistently promotes the role of the teacher in reinforcing and building each student's inner confidence.

Focusing on teaching students with moderate to severe learning, social, emotional, psychological, physical, intellectual, and language impairments, Sobol provides instructional strategies tailored to various disabilities and disorders. An extensive list of categories of disabilities is also included.

The colors of the well-known stoplight-red, green, and yellow-are used to help students understand the foundations of harmony and differences in pitch, learn rhythmic notation, and link to concepts in other disciplines and to help teachers with classroom management. Color illustrations on the accompanying CD provide materials for use in the classroom. Sobol also provides a six-part sample lesson plan based on mediated learning techniques and a curriculum project designed to teach critical thinking skills.

Throughout, Sobol's positive attitude infuses the book with possibilities. Her desire to provide a happy place in music where students feel safe is infectious. Her approach is an inspiration for all teachers: "Inside each and every child is a perfect human soul with unlimited potential locked up needing to be set free to find his or her ultimate power of expression."