The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of movable-do and fixed-do solfege instruction on the development of sight-singing skills of 7- and 8-year-old children. The main research question was: What effect does pedagogical approach have on children's sight singing achievement? Participants (N=181) for this study were students from twelve second grade classes from six schools in north central Florida. Four classes from two schools were randomly assigned to Experimental Group One that participated in movable-do solfege instruction. Four classes from two other schools were randomly assigned to Experimental Group Two that participated in fixed-do solfege instruction. Four classes from the remaining schools were assigned to be the Control Group which did not receive any solfege instruction, but participated in other singing and music reading activities. Participants in the experimental groups received solfege instruction for 10 sessions of general music classes, each 20 minutes in length. During the treatment period two different approaches to the solfege instruction were used: (1) movable-do instructional approach, which was based on Conversational Solfege method developed by John Feierabend and influenced by Kodály pedagogy and Gordon’s Music Learning Theory; and (2) fixed-do approach to the instruction based on Russian solfege textbooks by Frolova and Metalidi and Petcovskaya, which are traditionally influenced by French solfège methodology.

The children were individually tested prior to instruction and then again after the completion of 10 sessions. The children sight-sang randomly selected tonal patterns made of syllables do, re, mi and sol, mi and la. Sight-singing performance was evaluated for pitch and contour accuracy. To control for the effect of developmental tonal aptitude on sight-singing achievement, the Intermediate Measures of Music Audiation was administered prior to instruction. To control for singing voice development, the Singing Voice Development Measure was administered before and after experimental treatment to find out how the level of singing voice development affects sight-singing performance.

Results revealed a significant improvement in sight-singing achievement for both experimental groups. Children who participated in movable-do solfege instruction demonstrated highest scores on the post-tests and greatest gain in sight-singing achievement. MANCOVA test for total score on sight-singing post-tests revealed a significant effect for the pedagogical approach ( F = 4.24, df = 2, 176, p < 0.05), school (F = 13.98, df = 3, 176, p < 0.001). Singing Voice Development Measure pre-test ( F = 6.86, df = 6, 176, p < 0.001) and scores on sight-singing pre-test (F = 21.63, df = 1, 176, p < 0.001). Multiple regression procedures revealed that the number of solfege sessions (p < 0.001), the level of Singing Voice Development (p < 0.001) and scores on sight-singing pre-test (p < 0.001) were significant predictors of scores on sight-singing post-test. Tukey Pairwise Comparisons among pedagogical approaches yielded significant mean differences (p < 0.01) between movable-do and fixed-do pedagogy.