Young pupil has developed a habit of..... Options

[agricola]

Guessing can be a difficult habit to break, and it also extends to the habit, when they know they're wrong (either because they can hear it or because I say "no") of just GRABBING at the next nearest possibility. It's one of the few things that I tell them is "naughty"

I agree, guessing is a terrible lazy habit. Some children are extremely good at reading your reaction when they guess, I've got one little one who will look intently at my face while she starts to give her (guessed) answer then alters it like lightening if she sees a 'no' expression starting to appear on my face. She's much better at this game than I am so now I tell her that in order to stop her guessing I'm going to turn my face away when I ask a question. Others will play a note then swing round quickly to look at you to see if it's the right one. If they do this I move back so I'm more or less sitting behind them !

[gwyntdi-enw]

I don't have any answers to this, but I have come across infant-school pupils who seem to temporarily "lose" the ability to read words as well. They don't seem to be acting-up, or to have any control over it. It's almost as if they have just filed that piece of information away for a while. Perhaps it's something some brains do to protect some aspect of learning while it works on something else, as the memory always comes back intact at a later date.

[linda.ff]

[Others will play a note then swing round quickly to look at you to see if it's the right one. If they do this I move back so I'm more or less sitting behind them !

Oh, I get that one SO often! I tell them if they keep looking at mer they'll turn into stone. Then one time they turn round and I'm wearing my "turn you into stone" face! (and growling)

The typical conversation is "A?"
no
"B?"
"and you're going to go through the alphabet until I say Well Done, are you? It's not going to happen"

Or in the case of questions with only two possible answers, as soon as one is obviously wrong, they change it swiftly. I either remain stony-faced until they have to decide which of their answers they meant, or sometimes give such an effusive "well done!!!!!!" to the second answer that they realise I'm being sarcastic (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

[morceau]

My response to guessing and going through the alphabet is:

"bland, interested face - giving nothing away*
"so, what's your final answer?"

[notmusimum]

My guess is she knows what the notes are well enough and is just trying to make it more interesting.

Why not give her a sticker if she answers them all correctly, you could tell her before you start how many she needs for a sticker or just keep it open. alternatively put the game aside for now and test the same skill in a different way.

[Aquarelle]

I went looking for this thread again because of an experience I had this week with a bright just seven year old. I mention it because it goes to show how misunderstood we can be. I was carefully explaining about steps and skips on the keyboard - lots of practical stuff playing notes next to each other and skipping others. I finally focussed on skipping from C to E as that was the skip in his piece (Piano Adventures Primer). Then we got to looking at skips and steps in the music.

Then little boy tried to play the piece. He read the music carefully and played the piece leaving out all the D's. When I asked him why he had not played the D's he said "Oh, I thought I was supposed to skip them."

Back to the drawing board! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)

[Cyrilla]

I went looking for this thread again because of an experience I had this week with a bright just seven year old. I mention it because it goes to show how misunderstood we can be. I was carefully explaining about steps and skips on the keyboard - lots of practical stuff playing notes next to each other and skipping others. I finally focussed on skipping from C to E as that was the skip in his piece (Piano Adventures Primer). Then we got to looking at skips and steps in the music.

Then little boy tried to play the piece. He read the music carefully and played the piece leaving out all the D's. When I asked him why he had not played the D's he said "Oh, I thought I was supposed to skip them."

Back to the drawing board! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)

If there's one thing I've learned from teaching, it's NEVER ASSUME YOUR STUDENT/PUPIL KNOWS/UNDERSTANDS/CAN DO something. It's very, very easy to make assumptions that a student has understood something but it's only by asking open-ended questions, and by providing certain activities, that you will know for sure whether this understanding is really there or not (viz. the thread on teaching the melodic minor (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif) ).

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[linda.ff]

Then little boy tried to play the piece. He read the music carefully and played the piece leaving out all the D's. When I asked him why he had not played the D's he said "Oh, I thought I was supposed to skip them."

Back to the drawing board! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) Yes, one wonders if they must think we do these things just to make life complicated - like, why would we write them? I had a similar experience once after having taught - I thought - carefully what a tie showed you you had to do, only to have one little girl come back thye next week and carefully lift her hand off the second of the tied notes. "You said I wasn't meant to play that one" she said. So she trustingly assumed we musicians must have some very good reason for carefuly writing these notes we don't want them to play.

(It sometimes takes a while to get them to understand why some exam books have printed whole bars which they don't want anyone to play - and they have this little box over the top with a figure 1 in it)

[Lemontree]

Yeah, I have one of those "little ones" (12 yrs), too. And she is a genious when it comes to it. The thing is, I am better. And actually I seem to be the only one who has realized yet, what she is doing. Because she is doing it, when reading, too. That's why now the parents say she is dyslectic - but she isn't. Just very clever.

She doesn't know how to learn. That's one aspect. I am not sure, if she wants to learn. She certainly wants to play all the pretty pieces. So, what she did before she got me, about two months ago, she obviously guessed have of the time, or took ages to sort through the notes on the paper, writing the name of the note above it. Then, she would memorize the whole piece in almost no time - and then appears to "read" from the paper, while in fact playing from memory. It's a profoundly astounding brain performance, but not the required task of reading a piece. Problem is, I only see her every two weeks which means, I cannot influence her or work out a way to study properly, to read the music. Which means, she first needs to work on getting the names with the notes right. I started on flashcards last time. I hope they put them into use, which I will know on Friday. Hope never ceases!

[RoseRodent]

Some kids start to realise at school that knowing the answers is distinctly Not Cool and they develop an ingrained habit of pretending not to know things. I'm afraid I've done that even at university because people got annoyed that I remembered things easily where they struggled. It's pure luck, my brain takes in information really easily and I lacked skills that they took for granted, but I knew that it wasn't smart for me to admit to everything I knew. If she's a particularly smart pupil it might be a bit of that?

My 5 year old daughter does also like to play this game, however. When she is doing reading she will start giving silly answers to words I know she knows. I tell her firmly that I know she's putting it on and we'll not do the game any more. We come back to it after doing something else. The "reward" of getting to mess you about is removed for the time being.