Interesting article:

http://www.musicteachermag.com/articles/article.asp?a=15

Although piano isn't my instrument, I found this a fascinating article to read. Thanks for posting it.

Obviously, for beginning and elementary pianists, music reading will tend to be entirely 'literal', rather than 'syntactic.' However, even relatively inexperienced pianists, from perhaps Grade 4 level, often begin to reduce details in reading music (for example, omitting left hand parts, omitting lower notes in double notes passages, etc.) This reflects a growing awareness that some parts tend to be of less importance than others, and a developing understanding of how our musical language works.



The above is a quote from the web page imlovinit pasted, which I think is interesting, and which might explain a little about why more fluent sight-reading begins to develop at about Grade 4 to 5, despite the music being more complex than what was presented at earlier stages.

Anyway, that's as far as I've got in reading the article, so I'm off to read some more now!

EDIT: I've read it all now and it's an extremely interesting and thought-provoting article. Thanks, imlovinit!

According to the article Schumanns Symphonic Etudes "make very minimal mechanical demands".

Am I reading a different repertoire?