Teachers struggling to instruct ever-growing numbers of children who don't speak English have found that singing with their students hits the right note.

Tulare, Calif., elementary schools use a curriculum called Singlish that combines special CDs of children's songs with posters of the song lyrics to help students struggling with English. Tulare schools have been using the program for three years.

Throughout California's San Joaquin Valley — where one in four students is learning English — singing is a proven technique to expand children's vocabulary.

"Children enjoy music, and before they know it, they're using the language," said Theresa Castelan, an English-learner teacher for the Clovis Unified School District.

Although there is growing research on pairing songs with learning English, music instruction in elementary schools is declining because of budget cuts and pressure on teachers to focus on math and English. Sandy Guy, who teaches third-grade English learners at Wilson Elementary School in Tulare, said music, art and P.E. have all suffered because of the push for students to do well on state tests.

She spends time every Friday on Singlish and uses songs at other times as well to bolster instruction. It's time well spent, Guy said: "What a wonderful way to increase their vocabularies, by singing a song."

On a recent afternoon, Guy taught the class to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner." After they sang, she went over 10 words from the anthem she expected the students would struggle with.

Dolores Lopez, 9, said she learned the word "twilight" and Adrian Plasencia, 8, said he learned "perilous."

The students also sang one of their favorites from the Singlish collection, "Down By the Bay." Singlish offers folk tunes and other children's songs such as "Farmer in the Dell" and "Yankee Doodle" for preschool through sixth grade.

Former San Fernando Valley, Calif., music teacher Ida Larsen launched Singlish out of her home in 1998.

As a music teacher, she had created visual aids to help her Spanish-speaking students learn songs. Classroom teachers commented on how much English Larsen's students were learning in music class, so she began developing curriculum for teachers.

COMFORTABLE LEARNING

One of the reasons singing works is because children can practice language "without being singled out, in a nonthreatening environment," said Teresa Huerta, an assistant professor in the Department of Literacy and Early Education at Fresno State.

Huerta said that with the continued influx of non-English-speaking students to Valley schools, it's more important than ever that teachers explore techniques to help their students.

English learners are the fastest-growing student population in the United States, growing by 57 percent since 1995, compared with less than 4 percent growth for all students, according to a 2008 study by the Educational Testing Service based in Princeton, N.J. The study also found that California educates one-third of the country's English learners — 1.6 million students.

Paul Reagan, bilingual coordinator for the Tulare City School District, is such a believer in using music to help students grasp English that he advocates all English-learner teachers in the district use Singlish.

EFFECTIVENESS STUDIED

But studies about the effectiveness of using music to improve vocabulary have had mixed results.

Researcher Suzanne L. Medina, who teaches in the School of Education at California State University, Dominguez Hills, had more conclusive results from a four-day study on whether music helped students learn English.

She found that students learned an average of 1.5 words after hearing a story paired with music, while those who listened to the story without music learned an average of one word.

In the Fresno Unified School District, English-learner teachers attended a workshop in November on using music to develop language skills, said Kate McKnight, the district's visual and performing arts coordinator.

For years, music teachers have seen the benefit of learning vocabulary with music; now others are seeing that, too, she said.

Said McKnight: "The winners are the students, the second-language learners, and really all students."