Teaching Measure Lines

With the rise of the rhythm play-along videos since the pandemic, I realized a couple of years ago that my students no longer understood the concept of a measure or a measure line when reading full music notation. It's a small thing that I didn't miss until it was gone, and over the last couple of years have been working to recover! Here are some very simple tips for bringing back the measure line.

I realized my students were missing some important learning when my 3rd graders who were learning a new song on recorder asked me what kind of rhythm those vertical lines were. I hadn't realized it at the time, but a lot of my composition worksheets just have 1 measure per line (or just 1 measure total) so it's big enough for young students' larger writing, I use rhythm play-along videos that have each beat in a box rather than using measure lines, and when they were using manipulatives to compose I would have them put each measure on its own line. They had no idea what a measure line was because I never used them!

Here are a few simple ways I started incorporating measure lines into rhythm notation practice. After making these small tweaks for the last year and a half or so, my students no longer stumble over the measure lines when we get to a fully notated melody (it's really not a very difficult concept as long as you don't completely forget about them like I did!).

1. Popsicle Sticks

When I have students use composition manipulatives like these cards, I give them popsicle sticks and have them use those as the measure lines and place the manipulatives on the floor or staff lines with at least 2 measures in a row so they can see how the popsicle stick measure line divides the groups of beats.

2. Worksheets

I actually intentionally kept my composition worksheets that have one measure per line the same. The first thing I have students do now when I am having them write a rhythm or melody is write in the measure lines themselves to divide each line into at least 2 measures. They still have plenty of room for the rhythms they are writing even with the lines divided in half!

3. Rhythm Practice Examples

The latest change I have been working on making is replacing some of the rhythm practice visuals I use that look like this:

Instead of having each measure in a different colored box, I'm putting the notes on a single line staff and adding measure lines, like this:

Small changes like these have made measure lines very straightforward for my students, and it really doesn't seem to create any added difficulty for them either. I have really noticed a big difference in my students' ability to read full musical notation by making sure I'm incorporating more elements like measure lines in our regular practice!