The purpose of the study was to explore the possible effects of music activities, specifically singing and movement on certain reading test scores in beginning and pre readers in a Reading First school. Participants were 8 kindergarten and 17 first grade students (N=25) at a Reading First elementary school in an urban school district in the Midwest. All students in the study participated in either an extracurricular music class (experimental group) or in extracurricular interactive reading games (control group) twice a week for 7 weeks. Both sets of activities were focused on the language arts curriculum used during the 7-week experimental phase. The study compared reading test scores of kindergarten and first grade students in the areas of phonemic awareness and fluency as predictors of reading readiness and ability. Pre and posttest scores from the Developmental Reading Assessment, subtests of the Phonological Awareness Test, and a Graded Word List were compared through the use of the Mann-Whitney U-test. The results showed no significant difference between the reading scores of the reading games group (control) and the music activities group (experimental) in any of the posttest scores although several individual music group students showed notable and surprising individual growth. The present study demonstrated that students who were in the extracurricular music class (experimental group) scored as well in tests of necessary reading skills as the students who participated in the interactive reading games (control group). [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]