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Abstract
The first content standard of the National Standards for Music Education requires that students sing, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music. Although state and district elementary music curricula vary widely, many are based on the National Standards for Music Education and therefore include singing as a primary content area and method of teaching and learning music. However, classroom assessments of singing voice achievement and development vary widely, and information about reliability and validity of these assessments is rarely reported. The purpose of this article was to identify and discuss measurements of singing voice achievement for elementary aged students that have been used in research studies from dissertations and refereed music education journals since the publication of the National Standards for Music Education in 1994. The author describes each measurement tool, discusses its validity and reliability, and evaluates the practicality of each measure for classroom use by elementary general music teachers. Finally, recommendations for how one of these measures might be used to improve instruction in an elementary music classroom have been made.
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