One of my new pupils has had a go at playing the first few tunes in Abracadabra, and written on it with B, A, G, 1,2,3 etc to correlate with the notes/number of fingers to put down. Any suggestions for getting her away from this? I've given her quizzes on notes to do, rubbed out the markings as best as I can, etc but any other ideas would be grateful. Never had a student do this before.

Make it clear that you don't do that.
Look at the notes before playing and get her naming them.
Get her to point out when the note changes.
Find all the same notes in the piece.
Without the music call out note names for her to play... see how fast she can play each one and build up to short sequences.
Flash cards.
And lots of patience.

The first time I wrote the note names down, my teacher told me it was a bad habit to get into so I never did it again. But a younger pupil might not take this on board.

How old is the pupil?

She is 11, and I told her that we would not be doing that in future and she just went "aaaaaaaaaw no", but I think she will understand eventually. I've done most of the things you suggested sbhoa, I'll just plug away.

Would stickers help?

I've had girls older than that who are sticker fiends.

Write about a dozen notes on a stave and do a speed test if you have a stopwatch (maybe on your phone?).
Name and play them while being timed, trying to beat the time each week.

Having watched my two daughters I have come to the conclusion that learning to read music is a very individual process. Daughter number two has had no problem learning to read music while playing the piano (so two clefs right from the beginning), it took daughter number one almost three years to learn to read cello music (rather than finger numbers). I don't really know how/why it finally clicked for her (although getting glasses certainly helped).

If she is really having problems I think you need to work first on relating the fingering to the name of the note orally and separately on relating the written note to the name/fingering.

Ultimately the most important thing is lots of patience.

I took over from a teacher at a school, only to find that every student had the notes written in (and not by themselves, either! )

It was (is?) a painful process. The kids are used to playing everything easily & quickly, and forcing them to read the music really slows things down. Be patient; explain why they need to learn to read the music (it often helps to show them something you're learning that has a ridiculously large number of notes & then ask them what they would do if they had to write all the notes in), and be really encouraging when they get the notes right.

Good luck!

It might also depend on the instrument. I've noticed that for the flute (played it for 23? years now), I still think in letter names, even in really easy pieces and scales, and occasionally pencil one in, especially if there are lots of ledger lines, or it's a note that I consistantly mis-hit.

But on the piano (played briefly as a child, then recently for last 6 months, but only teaching myself slowly in spare time...) I hardly think in letter names at all, but in intervals, placings and shapes. Writing in letter names would be of no use. Fingerings are more use to me, to avoid awkward crossovers.

Have realised that my piano way is far preferable, and am working really hard to change my flute playing, with the aim of being able to sight-transpose (have just about cracked reading bass clef parts onto flute, but not yet tackled any proper transposing....)

Bizarrely, I can memorise piano pieces (admittedly still pretty basic ones from tutor books), but can't remember more than a bar of even the simplest flute music, unless I just learn strings of letters.

Anyway Scaramouche, I digress....back to the question....I recall my recorder teacher doing lots of note naming drills with us, with rhythm clapping as well - he would write a series of notes on the board, we all stood up, and in turn we had to say the note name on the first beat of the bar, and clap the rest of the rhythm e.g. if the rhythm was 3/4 we had to go "A-clap-clap D-clap-clap C-clap-clap etc", as soon as you got a few right he would indicate that you should sit down and the next person had to carry on from where you finished - he conducted us throughout as if we were playing a great orchestral work So no sneaky rallentandos, although he used to speed up if we were getting good! If you were the last one standing you were mortified and made sure you practiced that week As we got better the notes got harder and so did the rhythms. But I recall if one note gave lots of us trouble he would write it in, which I guess is where I got the habit from. It was lots of fun, but you do need a few students to make the competition bit of it work....

Looks like, to me, that she's decided that writing letter names under the notes would make it easier for her to read the music rather than read the music 'properly'. This has happened to me on a couple of occasions, and you've got to nip it in the bud, in my opinion. Make it clear, as sbhoa has said, that you don't do that.

Be prepared for changing your pupil from being a 'letter reader' to a 'note reader' to take a while. If she's just at the start of her sax/flute playing life it may not take so long though.

Cures : I think sbhoa's put most of them in a nutshell. Would recommend making flashcards : I find them very useful for this situation.

If she is really struggling without the letters written on the music why not remove one at a time? Say one a week, at least it will give her a little more time to learn each note.

I've taken a few on who do this and ban it immediately. Explain that it will be easier in the long run to start without note names now. Also mention it to parents - I had one who persistently wrote them in, after I had rubbed them out, and she was often incorrect as well! After 4 weeks of this I wrote a rather blunt note in the pupils notebook and it didn't happen again. Have manuscript paper at hand and write out short quizzes - make words using the musical alphabet and get the pupil to draw the notes on the stave - they usually enjoy this.

Last week when I was on work experience a young boy refused to play the piece without the notes written above. I suggested that we just had a go without them and see how he got on and it was fine! There was only one note which I had to write back in - E which he was quite unfamiliar with. I think very often the child builds in a dependancy on writing in notes and then create a block when someone suggests they do it differently. I think all the tips above should eventually work, even if not immediately.