Hello everyone

Most students I've entered for exams have really been let down by their sightreading marks! (this is piano btw) I do a couple with them every 2 weeks or so but some students are just very slow with reading notes and while they can eventually figure it out given time in an exam situation they can't cope. I guess it's my fault to a degree but the same students who do badly at sightreading do brilliantly with aural and I certainly don't teach them how to sing..I myself have always found sightreading very easy so am struggling to understand why students find reading notes so difficult. There's always so much else to get through at each lesson that I can't include sightreading in lessons every week. How do you improve sightreading in your students? Any suggestions much appreciated!

Get them to play pieces a few grades behind what they are doing just as a sight reading exercise.
Tell them to start to try and be reading two bars in front of themselves (start with one note and build).
Deal with chords in shapes rather than trying to read 3+ actual notes (think about finger position etc.) Hope that makes sense as it does work!
Get them to know the keyboard - should not be looking at keys - this wastes time as the keys are always in the same place! Good idea is to play short pieces / sections from memory with eyes closed.
Paul Harris Improve Your Sight Reading.

Although I include sight reading in every lesson with all of my pupils and most of them do quite well on the test in their exams, it's obvious to me that some pupils find it a lot easier than others. Out of all mine, there is just 1 pupil who really struggles. She did her grade 3 exam last week and although her scales, pieces and aural will all have been okay, I know that her sight reading mark will be very low.
In her lesson yesterday, we talked about how difficult it is for her and what I can do to help her further. She admitted that she still struggles to remember which notes are which. She's been having lessons for 4 years and is able to play really well once she knows a piece.
I use different sight reading books, including Joining the Dots and Right @ Sight, as well as the ABRSM books and I find that regular sight reading in lessons really does pay off - but somehow this pupil just hasn't picked it up like the others.

This might not be relevant as for a pianist the problem could just be the number of notes to read at once, but I have a problem with sight-reading, in that I'm terrible at the rhythm aspect. As a violinist I only have to read a couple of notes at a time, so I can get the pitches correct, but the length of the notes (esp. dotted rhythms) defeat me at times. When I'm not playing I can count the rhythms fairly easily, but when I then add in intonation and bow co-ordination something gives and it's generally note length. One thing I've found that seems to be helping is to read a score while listening to the piece. Maybe it's getting used to how the relative time values of the notes sound.

I think it's something to do with practicing the skill away from the instrument, with the music. Clapping and counting along to the score (without the music playing) doesn't seem to help much.

I find that the majority of young beginners struggle to sight read music now and the problem is not that they don't know their notes -- I give them flash cards and they can identify notes quite quickly. They are just not used to working things out for themselves, so having to apply their knowledge to an unknown situation really throws them. I can see how stressed some of the little ones get when asked to think for themselves rather than come out with memorised facts. Their response is usually wild guessing. I try to do some really easy sight reading with them in the lesson and keep it as relaxed as possible to try to build their confidence.

If this is piano is she still trying to think of note names all the time while sight reading/playing?
I found one 'trick' to help to show how reading by interval works was to print out some examples in C clef. I tell them the start note and they can read from there.

I do a bit of sight-reading most lessons with most pupils. It may be an exam-style exercise, or it may be a line of something in their current book. When tackling a new piece, they don't usually hear it before they explore the first line or two.

As others have mentioned, some find it much harder than others. I too use a variety of books, and with the really weak sight readers I will provide a book, with a half page of exercises or so to be done each week. I follow up what they are doing to check how they are going about it, and try to pick up where I think they need help. Weak rhythm? establish very steady pulse and fit the rhythm around it. Try to count, so you know where in the bar you are - losing their place is a problem for quite a few. Stopping to think of notes? we work on reading by interval.

I'm doubtful about the idea of reading two bars ahead - most who struggle with sight reading would find this impossible, I think.

I like the C clef idea, Sbhoa!

Can you give them a distinct strategy to follow, eg:

Work out what key the piece is in
Play a quick scale in that key
See where the highest and lowest notes in each hand are
Look for any weird accidentals, or weird rhythms
Find the fastest passage and determine the speed required for that
Put both hands in a sensible place on the keyboard to start the piece.

This is also what I do. I tell beginners to have a shortlist in their heads, which is:
RH position
LH position
Key Signature (and how this affects where their fingers are placed)
Time Signature & note values
Dynamics & articulation

All this takes quite a few minutes, so longer than they get in the exam, but they do get quicker at it and are usually okay by the time they do Grade 1. And their reading improves gradually, of course, so most can manage the increased difficulties as they go through the grades.

I have mentioned this earlier, but if your students have an ipad, you could encourage them to get the SightRead4Piano app for the iPad by Wessar International. It is excellent. It really can improve sight-reading dramatically, in a fun way.

Even better, build sight-reading into the rest of the lesson, rather than as an ancillary activity that can get overlooked. Straightforward duets would be one approach that might work, placing a greater emphasis on contituity and pulse.

My students do sight reading every week at their lesson and have done since they have learnt more than 3 notes. They have a sight reading book and are set exercises to prepare at home each week.

Duets are an excellent idea I actually do this with my pupils and it really helps them to get used to playing with others

My own sight reading has always let me down, but I have managed to improve vastly over the last couple of years by just keeping doing it - I play something new everyday and have found over time that I have gradually began to read the music in phrases and patterns and they become more and more familiar, before I would be trying to string individual notes together - much like reading individual letters to read a word rather than reading the whole word as we tend to actually do. hope that helps

I think that might be what's happening when I follow a score with the music playing.

Maybe two bars is unreasonable, but in many cases they aren't reading ahead at all until you point it out. I have to say that there's no point in having their eyes on the note they're just playing, as it's too late by then, in fact it's too late to be looking at it once you've decided what note to play! Much better as you start the sound of each note to be knowing which way you're going to move from that note. Understanding this, which sounds obvious, has often been a step forward.

As indeed has the fact that when reading - not necessarily "sight-reading" but even second or third time through reading - the process of notes coming off the page and then through the eyes, round the brain and then the hands. Obvious? I'd have thought so. Yet in five days three pupols, age 6, 9 and 12, have made improvements to their learning of a piece by the recognition of this fact; up to that time, they now realise, they had been allowing the muscle memory in the hands to supersede the message from the brain, almost as a matter of course. Try a beginner on GFEDE, and how often will they first play GFEDC? I've found that sort of thing happening over and over, becasue the hand "knows" what comes after GFED, since it's done it so many times before, and is not being told by the brain which has taken the message from the eyes that this is not what's specified here..

The youngest of these children was actually quite surprised to know that the brain controlled the movements of the hands, and was very doubtful about it - "I can wiggle my toes" she said, "and they're a LONG way from my brain". They think the brain is just for thinking.

Memorising a bar at a time is a route into the 'look ahead' idea. Take a sight-reading test, and ask them to memorise bar one. Take the music away, and play it. Repeat for each bar. Then do it for two bars, etc.

Don't, however, go down the route of covering up notes once they're played - it contradicts what we know about how the eyes are actually taking in the information. There's actually a substantial Wikipedia article dedicated to eye movement in music reading.

I haven't read that article yet, but I will soon! I briefly tried the covering of the notes technique and without exceptiion the pupils hated it. It's like a rear-view mirror in a way - the rest of the line loses any context if you can't see where it's come from as well as where it's going. Thanks for the tip, owainsutton

I've found that sight reading problems mostly arise when students have been moved forward too quickly in the earlier/pre-exam stages. I prefer to spend about an extra year before commencing exams to ensure that students' reading skills are well developed. In this pre-exam stage they learn a LOT of material - working from method books, but also being exposed to a lot of supplementary pieces in a wide range of styles and also reading when working on exercises such as A Dozen a Day. That way sight reading doesn't have to be a specific thing they must learn, they're just doing it in every lesson through learning new pieces. I rarely have to sit and nut out a piece note by note with my students, because the majority of pieces that they learn are within their realm of understanding. Occasionally they are given more demanding pieces to spice things up, but the main focus for me in these early stages is building a strong familiarity with the music and with the instrument. So far it's been very successful. It also means that when students do start exams they don't have to spend six months trudging through the same pieces. They get notes and rhythms down in a week or two and the rest of exam prep can be spent focussing on musicality/scales/aural etc. whilst still learning a few fun and simple pieces (to keep up their reading).

Obviously that's more of a preventative approach. As for solving existing problems, I think making sure they are regularly learning easier pieces (pieces that can be finished in a couple of weeks) alongside their regular repertoire is important to ensure that they're regularly having to read new material. As for the specific exam sight reading training I agree with Vectistim and Jenny; give them a step by step approach that they can use each time they sight read. I have my students talk me through the steps before we open the book.

Working on rhythmic sight reading is also very useful (ie. clapping and counting the rhythm). The counting forces them to think about the time signature and the relationships between different note values.

Some sighreading entries from the Piano Sage Blog, although mainly written for pianists, many principles can be applied across other instruments.

Grade 1 ABRSM Piano Sight Reading Tips
http://pianosage.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/ab...ading-tips.html

8 Essential Piano Sight Reading Tips: for exams, or learning a new piece
http://pianosage.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/8-...ht-reading.html

Advanced Piano Sight Reading Tips: for exams, playing, or learning a new piece
http://pianosage.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/ad...g-tips-for.html

Good luck with the exams!

Overall, my students tend to fall into Beagle's camp - excellent aural, pretty shabby sight-reading.

I make a distinction though between ABRSM exam sight-reading (30 sec. prep and then play it straight through) and what the French would call a sight-reading study (10 mins prep and try out and then play it).

I know the reasons behind the ABRSM exam sight-reading, and understand its value, but am more concerned with the second 'study' version because, it seems to me, that this is far more important for general progress as a piano player.

Last week, one G5 12 year-old took away a new G5 piece and came back a week later, having learnt it all, right notes, right rhythm, a very respectable job - and I know she didn't spend that long on it.
But when we did some basic duets in class, they were dreadful.

I even have one pupil who got 19 for his G1 sight-reading (a pretty high moment of my sight-reading teaching career) who cannot 'learn' a new piece by himself at all - the G1 exercise was exactly that, a technical exercise, it bears no relation to his reaction when confronted with a whole page (or even whole line) of new music, and he's not a little kiddie.

Sorry this is not much help. The others' advice sounds good. But my point was, maybe, to assess how much the sight-reading weakness is adversely affecting their actual piano progress and how much is it just messing up their exam mark.

Good luck . . .

There is a great deal ympazagain's and dolce@piano's posts that I agree with wholeheartedly.
Not to push to grade 1 too soon. Play lots of pieces. Not to learn pieces by rote. Build up solid all-round skills.
(off topic, I had an enquiry this week from a mum whose son had,according to his first teacher, got to grade 1 standard within a year and, had not done the exam, but was getting bored with the pieces, and so should move straight on to grade 2. Hmmm.)

Dolce, I fundamentally agree with your premise about general sight reading skills, and I think it IS useful to put it in context. I have said before that I wish the AB would allow a full minute for preparation of sight reading. I agree that a 'system' approach is needed, particularly for exam style sight reading, (and I have outlined my own approach often enough on here!) but I feel strongly that a half minute barely allows time to get started, and that a whole minute would allow the candidate to think it through much more effectively, especially at the early grades.

Doing a sight-reading exercise once a week in the lesson simply isn't enough to get them reading properly. Compare that to learning to read words - daily practice is required. Learning pieces independently from the word go is helpful (eg tutor book stage set them a couple of pieces to learn each week). Independent exploration of new music is fun and motivating for them, and builds SR skills really well. I lend out books for this purpose fairly regularly and encourage my pupils to play through everything in their books of pieces, not just the few that we are working on specifically in lessons. I agree that checklists and so on can be useful in exam preparation, but simply getting through a volume of new music every week will be far more effective, enjoyable and self-reinforcing than any amount of sight-reading "methods".

Yes, I agree up to a point. I think a 'plan of action' is needed in the exam context - simply to avoid that sense of 'boggle' for a young candidate when faced with a strange line of music. That's the only reason I teach a 'system'.

Thamks for the link owainsutton, have printed it off to read -- any scientific studies in music are always really valuable, pity there's not more research done ! I always re-evaluate the way I teach over the summer break and music reading is top of my list this year. Especially what to do about people who refuse to even focus their eyes on the page -- buy them a periscope perhaps !

When does the second situation occur in real life? The closest I've got to that is choral singing, where we'll sing through a piece once, and then perform it in a service an hour later.

In my experience of accompanying, sight reading tends to be truly sight reading, none of this 30 seconds preparation luxury, about the most you might get is time to turn over page corners to try and manage the page turns.

Opinions are likely to differ depending on the instrument in question. From a violinist's point of view, I encourage exam candidates to view the 30-second approach as a snapshot of how one copes with sight-reading through page after page of new orchestral music after having ten minutes before the rehearsal to skim through the part and take in/try out relevant details.

I find that some of my pupils are just freaked out at the mere mention of sight reading so I initially work on different elements that will be required for sight reading proper at a later date. We do lots of rhythm work with drums, the children especially like the flip a rhythm books. I also reinforce note reading using boomwhackers or tuned percussion. I find that children who are initially concerned about reading a line of music and playing it on the piano lose their worries when playing it on a fun plastic tube. Once they realise that they can do it on such an instrument they gain their confidence and their sight reading improves.

I would agree with that. I am now on strike and am refusing to tell a child any note that I think they should be able to reason out from what they already know. After working out the note umpteen times the brainseems to decide that it might be better after all to commit that note to memory - from whence it becomes another note from which to work out another note ........ And there gets cured another case of the mental laziness so beloved by the perpetrators of our education systems.

Just as a matter of interest I had a Grade 3/4 pupil who was having a lot of difficulty with reading. I started him on the ABRSM Preliminary Studies. These are meant for Pre Grade 1 children to improve various aspexcts of techinque and back at the beginning of the 20th century they probably did just that - but no longer! They are very limited as far as key signatures are concerned but great for actually relating notes on the stave to the white keys on the piano and for recognising groups of notes. I asked him to learn one piece a week and concentrate just on the notes. The next week he had to add in the technicalities and expression and at the same time take on board another one for note reading only. For this particular pupil it worked very well. and he managed 17 for the Grade 4 sight reading this summer.