Email Me:      janger@charter.net            

Newspaper Articles

SINGING IS CELEBRATION OF LANGUAGE IN READING CLASS

By Kay Haden
Post Crescent Correspondent
 

HILBERT ---Does music make kids better readers? Jim Anger, Hilbert reading teacher, believes it does, and has incorporated folk songs, ballads, and country music into classroom study.
    "Studies have shown," Anger said, "students will remember content better if the teacher hooks the lesson to an unusual event or situation." Singing can provide that uniqueness, Anger believes, that will "pull the lesson into a student's memory bank."
    A second reason singing is used in the classroom, Anger said, is because "reading is an active use of language. One important educational goal is for students to develop an early enjoyment of the use of language."
    Anger said, "Singing is the celebration of language." He said children in the classroom bring a natural music with them. "The language of children has rhythm and melody," he said. "Kids can use. this natural experience with language when they start learning to read."
    At each grade level Anger emphasizes different objectives. To stimulate interest and develop a stronger knowledge background for reading about trains, Anger taught first grader Jeremy Ott to play a few basic guitar chords so he could accompany the song "Freight Train."
    Anger began instruction by reading the song and using some words in the song to reinforce basic word attack and phonics lessons recently taught. As part of the activities, Jeremy read books on trains and wrote a train story of his own. He read his story aloud to other first graders. Then Jeremy, accompanied by Anger, played and sang the song about trains. The other students were given copies of the song so they could sing along.
    Before the school year ends, the entire first grade class will visit the reading center to read, talk about and sing songs. Anger said the goals of the experience are to show that songs are poems that contain rhyme, that songs and poems can tell stories and bring out human feelings, that the students already know many of the words in songs, and that reading can lead to fun. "Being exposed to seeing and using words in a sing-along setting," Anger said, "can insert more words into the children's visual memories."
    Anger said that songs can help students understand that words sometimes mean different things in different situations. They are also helpful in teaching students to distinguish between fact and emotion, or opinion.

    The sixth graders are in the process of reading a biographical sketch about Woody Guthrie, sometimes called the father of folksingers. The song, "This Land Is Your Land" is included in the study. "When the kids finish with this lesson, besides being able to better interpret direct quotes for meanings, and understanding why Guthrie has become a significant part of American history, Anger said, "students will be able to recognize words that act as symbols and be able to feel the symbolism because of both seeing and singing the song."
    Songs are compressed language, Anger said. He wants students to see that words, used effectively, can stir the imagination and allow the reader and listener to create pictures in his mind. "The lyrics of a song can tell a story , describe various situations in life and the moods or feelings these situations create." Anger said, "They tell of sadness or joy. Like the short story, they present to the reader a slice of life!"

Reading Specialist Utilizes Music

As Innovative Instructional Tool

By .Joyce Schubring

    Jim Anger likes to make learning fun for his students.   Music-singing and accompanying himself on the guitar-is one of the unique instructional methods the reading specialist successfully utilizes in the classroom.

    Incorporating music into his teaching was "kind of a fluke, really, in a way!" he laughed.   "Years ago, a kindergarten teacher who knew I played guitar asked me to bring it to class for show and tell. They were studying the letter G, of course.   I played it and allowed the kids to play it. The teacher had a song, "The Little Goslings." We worked it up and got the kids to sing it. It snowballed from there!" Anger remembered.
    After determining the success of using songs to reinforce his teaching, Jim discovered research in support of what he was doing.  "The concept was not my own, but one developed by a professor in Portland, Oregon, Bill Harp, who had presented the idea that we should use children's natural language to help them learn in school when they are becoming emergent readers.

    An Oshkosh native, Anger graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh in 1971 with a BS in secondary education. The following year he moved to Grafton, where he taught for nine years.  During that time, Jim completed his master's degree in education at Cardinal Stritch College in Milwaukee and was licensed as a reading specialist.

    At Park School, Anger works as a Chapter 1 teacher. "What we're trying to do is support the learning that is going on in the regular classroom The teachers touch base with me; they tell me they are working on certain letters." He works that into his teaching. "That way, the students are getting additional exposure to the letters," Anger explained .
    "I also try to present letters and sounds in a context that's a real reading situation. That's been my philosophy ever since I got my reading training." To do this, Jim types up and hands out, or prints on the chalk board song lyrics or stories. After reading and singing them aloud, he has the students identify certain letters, sounds or words contained in the song or story.
    "The kids become more aware of words and how they can be used by being in constant contact with them. A lot of repetition is important at an early age. That's why I like to use songs so much with youngsters, because there is a lot of repetition."

    At the end of the school year, Jim will compile all the songs he and the children have sung and worked with into a songbook, typed in big primary type. "They all go home with a songbook. They discover how many words they've learned over the course of a year! It's a fun thing!"

    The Kaukauna Times   Dec. 29, 1994

Whistle Junction Band's Folk Music Recalls By-gone Era

By Joyce Schubring

LIFE STYLE
CS
 

Jim Anger Opens Fall Storytime At Library
    Jim could be called a singer-songwriter, but if he has a specialty, it is performing for and with kids!

    Anger performs a wide range of music with voice, guitar, and harmonica-everything from country songs to Christmas holiday standards, with folk songs and his own material thrown into the mix.  In a group of performers, Jim is likely to be the one doing songs such as "Frog Went A-Courtin," "She'll Be Comin' "Round The Mountain," the Utah Phillips song, "Daddy, What's A Train?" or the Woody Guthrie classic, "This Land Is Your Land.'
    As a songwriter, Anger has written more than 70 songs, several about one of his favorite subjects, trains! While his musical interests are broad, he loves folk music the best-for the stories the songs can tell.
    He has been a member of two bands, Life's Full Circle and Whistle Junction, but now mostly sings solo. He has performed at schools, public library programs, Cub Scout meetings, The Wolf River Theater, New London, and at Appleton coffee houses.
    For many years, he has been a member of the Green Apple Folk Music Society in Appleton, and has been on stage at many Green Apple programs.   Recently, Jim hosted the open microphone at this summer's Shawano Old Time Music and Crafts Festival, and did a workshop stage performance, as well.
    To provide variety in his music, Anger uses both six-string and 12-string guitars, harmonicas, a strum stick, and a four-string, or tenor, banjo, which he plays guitar-style!

Menominee Nation News,    June 6, 2005

Reading Skills development and song lyrics

   Reading skills development and reading and singing song lyrics can be a good match! That's what two area guitar picking and singing reading specialists believe and demonstrated at a special music program for lower elementary students at Bowler Elementary School Friday, April 22, and for upper elementary children at Keshena Primary School on Thursday, May 19.
    Jim Anger, a reading teacher at Keshena Primary School, and Wendell Brookhser, Bowler's district reading specialist, performed songs for and with Kindergartners,  and first, second, and third grade students at Bowler, and with fourth and fifth graders at Keshena Primary.
    The students had the lyrics for some of the songs performed, and these were discussed prior to singing a particular song. Phonics knowledge was applied to some challenging words to gain correct pronunciation, and surrounding words were checked for clues to meaning. Questions relating to a song's main idea or theme, or drawing conclusions followed up the song.
  Brookhser and Anger were demonstrating that reading skills can be taught and practiced using print media a little different from the usual, that this type of instruction can be effective, and can be fun all at the same time.
    "Kids who like music can identify and really relate to this type of activity," Brookyser said. "And most kids like music!" he commented. "Kids will take more chances with attacking new words if singing is involved," Brookyser explained.
    Anger, who is also a Shawano singer-songwriter, as well as a reading specialist, had made a presentation of these ideas at a University of Wisconsin- Oshkosh Reading conference two years ago. When he and Brookyser met a few months ago, Anger shared some of these ideas with Brookhyser,, and they came up with the idea for the shared performance Bowler and KPS program.
    "We both knew there was a great connection between song lyric and reading teaching," Anger said. " Song lyrics can be a super tool for getting kids involved in the reading act!" There are many ways they can be used effectively in reading instruction, Anger explained.
    Some of the songs shared during the afternoon presentations included variations of Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land," a favorite of many students; "So Sang the River," a song with an environmental message, by Bill Staines; Wisconsin songwriter Larry Penn's "On My Grandma's Patchwork Quilt;" Lorre Wyatt's "Somos El Barco," a song often sung by Peter, Paul and Mary; some anti-bullying songs, shared by Brookyser; and some of Anger's original songs.

Shawano Leader         Thursday March 2,2005

Anger to perform  'A Touch of Ireland' March 12 at Library

    Shawano City-County Library welcomes singer-songwriter Jim Anger for the Saturday, March 12 Family Funtime program to be held in the Veslak Room at 10:30am.
    In honor of St. Patrick's Day, Jim will share a new program called, "A Touch of Ireland," a mixture of songs from Ireland, a traditional Irish story, and related experiences from Anger's 2003 trip to Ireland.
    A few songs Include "McNamara's Band," Cockles and Mussels," A Little Spot in Ireland," My Wild Irish Rose," and "Danny Boy." Jim will also perform two of his own original songs, "Hopes for Ireland," and "Even Greener Than Wisconsin in the Spring," which he wrote especially for this program. Pictures of interesting places in Ireland from Jim's trip will be on display.
    Anger is a talented artist who specializes in working with children at schools, libraries, and scouting programs. He can play several instruments, including both 6 and 12-string guitars, harmonicas, a strum stick, and a 4-string banjo. Anger has also made several CDs of his music.
    Whether Irish or not, all ages are welcome to attend. Questions may be directed to the Children's Department, 715-526-3829, extension 125.