Music can be an effective motivational vehicle for teaching listening skills, literature, oral and nonverbal communication, creative writing, handwriting, spelling, and grammar. One idea for integrating music into the language arts involves the use of song lyrics as reading materials. Since contemporary country music, and its precursor folk music, has a story to tell, primarily about people, the song lyrics can easily be used in the same way as traditional material in reading instruction. A teacher should first accumulate a large quantity of recorded country and folk music with printed lyrics, which can be separated according to ability levels based on vocabulary, subject matter, and other readability factors, and then develop exciting and challenging worksheets. After introducing a country music song to a class, the teacher can use its text to expand vocabulary, can have the class identify figurative language, and can make the children aware of alternative language styles in the song. Country music can provide situations for creative and practical writing activities, including language experience stories, new lyrics for a country or folk song, or letters to the recording artists. Country music can be used to introduce a parallel topic in literature, and children can learn library skills by researching the lives of the recording artists or composers. (Suggestions for activities and worksheets are included.) (HOD)