Browsing by Author "Nuorsaari, Anna"

Objectives. The purpose of this multi-case study was firstly to develop a new kind of intervention and secondly to see if this intervention will possibly enhance pre-school aged children's emerging literacy and mathematical skills. The intervention was carried out during a eight weeks period. The intervention consisted of playing the piano and composing with figurenotes. Figurenotes is a musical notation system invented in Finland. The same musical information can be shown with figurenotes as can be with traditional, western music notation. Previous studies have shown the benefits of musical training enhancing emerging literacy and mathematical skills. I was also curious to know if the musical training had some other benefits on the children's skills. I wanted also to use my experience as a music pedagogue and early childhood special education teacher in this thesis. Methods. This is a multi-case study with consists of the developing and carrying out the new figurenotes intervention and of five cases who took part in the intervention. The cases are all pre-school aged children who have special education needs. The data was collected with two standardized tests, Niilo Mäki Institution's Fonologia- and Nopean sarjallisen nimeämisen- tests, which measure child's phonological awareness and rapid serial naming and two assignments related to phonological awareness and series made of basic figures. In addition a board game was played to observe the children's ability to count. The data consists also of the observations I made during these measurements and during the intervention. This study is qualitative because I wanted to observe and study closely the learning processes of the children before, during and after the figure notes intervention. Results and conclusions. On the basis of this multi-case study there can't be made any conclusions of the cause and effect relations between the measurements and the figure-notes intervention, but it can be seen as a description of these five cases and their learning processes. Also it can be said on the basis of this study that it is very supporting knowledge to make plans regarding future studies on this field and on these subjects of study.