Music Interventions for Addressing WH Questions

Answering WH questions is a common academic goal area for many of our clients and students. Today’s blog post will discuss two music interventions that work on answering WH questions, for students of all ages and abilities!

Dice game

This intervention utilizes the classic game hot potato!

For this intervention you will need: Large dice, six question cards, mode for music (guitar or speaker).

You will start with a regular game of hot potato; playing music (recorded or live if appropriate) while prompting the client(s) to pass the large die to one another, or back and forth to you. When the music stops, whomever has the dice will have a turn to give it a roll! Whatever number is rolled, the client will pick up the corresponding question card! I suggest laminating note cards, so you can clean off the questions and use the cards over and over again. It can also be fun to add Velcro images to your cards, to make the questions more tangible for your client.

I love this intervention because it is so easily adaptable! I have also used this game for large groups of teenage students. I come up with 3 sets of 6 questions so each student would have a variety of questions to answer. Questions for these groups might include:

What is your favorite season?

Who in the circle is wearing blue?

When is your birthday?

Where have you gone on vacation?

The structure of the game remains the same, but you can adapt the questions to be as easy or difficult as necessary!

 Jeopardy

Here is another great adaptable technology tool for addressing WH questions in your groups! I used this game for one group to address basic WH questions, and in another group to address more elaborate questions! Click here for the website!

For my first group, I kept it simple with “What”, “Where”, and “Who” questions.

At the beginning of the game, I passed out different instruments to each student, then opened the game to play!

I played live music for “What’s that tune”, prompted the students to find where different colors are in the room, and also asked, “Who has the (instrument name)?”

For my second group, I developed more categories with broader questions. These categories included: Name that tune, Finish the lyric, Name that instrument, Artist Trivia, and Name that Artist!

These categories can be used to fit any kind of preferred music!

What I love most about these interventions is that they do not only address answering questions, they are also a great tool for building group rapport by creating positive peer interactions!

Thank you for reading! We hope you enjoy!

Emily Knezz, Toneworks Music Therapy Intern