I have a new pupil started, aged 5 1/2. She has been asking her mother if she could play the flute for around about a year. I started her off with a "see what she can do, etc" idea in mind.
She is actually quite good, has decent tone and is picking the insturment side up well.
My problem is she is struggling to read and understand the music and any notes i have given her to help she can't read as she can't read yet! Her parents are fairly laid back about her playing and i can see this might be a good attitude to take with her being so young.
She is obviously naturally talented and my opinion is to nuture this talent and encourage her yet i'm not sure what angle to take on this!
Any advice?!!

For piano I would be uncomfortable about teaching a child who can't read yet. It's difficult enough learning to read words let alone music! (although, music makes much more sense than letters!)

Saying that, you don't need to teach music reading straight away although it's something that I choose to do. I'm sure there will be many other forumites who will be able to give you suggestions about keeping your student interested and progressing without conventional notation to begin.

Just curious, how is a 5 1/2 year old reaching far enough to play a flute, surely even with a hook it would be too long?

She's suprisingly tall etc in a politically correct sense!
So far she's been playing with a normal straight head on the flute but i've advised her parents she would find it much easier to play with a curved head. They've bought her one with both.

For pupils of this sort of age I tend to concentrate on 'music-making' (clapping, listening, singing, making up little tunes) and not worry too much about note-reading. If she's keen - which she obviously is - the more formal elements will happen in time.

Would you stop a child from speaking because he/she is only 'allowed' to speak the words that he/she can read???!

I am not an instrumental teacher but I do teach children this age and I build up to the introduction of notation extremely slowly, gradually and systematically - then when the children ARE introduced to notation it is just the next tiny step along from what they have already been doing and they do it so easily and naturally that it is an absolute joy to see.

We are one of the few countries in the world who put our children into formal education so young and I can't see that this pays off in any way.

I studied 'The Teaching of Reading' as a subsidiary subject at college. Children have to have reached a stage of 'reading readiness' before they are able to comprehend these signs and symbols and to relate them to the sounds they speak - and there is a similar process involved in learning to read music.

We do not teach a child to read before it can talk. Why do we seem to think it is fine to teach a child what a crotchet is before it has any idea of the concept of pulse, or where an 'A' is on the stave before it has an understanding and awareness of pitch ?

Sorry, Louise1206 - I'm not getting at YOU - it's just that we have so many things in all aspects of education round the 'wrong' way and I am SOOO a Grumpy Old Woman today...

But my maxim, forever, is - SOUND BEFORE SYMBOL.

Do please investigate approaches such as Dalcroze and Kodály - I think they will open your eyes to all the very many possibilities of both working musically without notation, and then how to use notation in a meaningful way to the child.

Hi, I'm not a teacher but when I started playing piano I was exactly the same age as your pupil ! My piano teacher took things very slowly, and this meant I picked up notation realatively quickly (meaning she didn't have to re-explain things every week, once she had explained it once and I had a week to practise it stuck there!)

If you are wanting to teach her notation then what my piano teacher used to do was we had a manuscript book in which the 'rhymes' were written. Eg. for treble clef Every Good Boy Deserves Football, and then the spaces equal the word FACE (but there are loads of different rhymes that you probably use!). She used to write some notes in it and over the week I completed this exercise: the notes made up words (ie. EGG, FACE, CAB, BAD, DAD, ACE etc)! However this was quite a long time ago (11 years in fact ), there are probably some more up to date things that may be more interesting!!!

Beth started the piano before her fifth birthday. I think Beth really learnt that each note related to a particular finger to start with and then her teacher built on it from that. She was quick to learn.
Interestingly Beth found learning to read very hard. I assumed she was not very bright but she has recently been diagnosed as severely dyslexic (whoops). For some reason it doesn't have any consequences for reading music.
I'd never heard of Kodaly until this year. If I had my time again and the opportunity I would definitely start with Kodaly.
Dora

Cd junior is 16 months old and can already play Schumann's Piano Concerto...........well, he plays all the right notes, just not in the same order as on the music........

When I began to learn the piano well before I went to school, my teacher told my mother that she was happy to teach me if I knew the alphabet up to G and the numbers 1 - 5. This was achieved and off I went.

I have taught several young children and have given the same request to their mothers - so they don't need to actually be able to read, just recognise a few letters and numbers which I can then relate to keys on the piano and fingers. We draw round the hands and label the fingers etc.

Initially progress is quite slow, and I first did it on the understanding that I didn't know how we would get on (basically because I'd not been used to teaching very young children). It was a leap of faith really but I've been pleased to see how much has "stuck". It's as though learning about music and reading notes on the stave becomes automatic and is just "known" at this age. I certainly do not ever remember being taught how to read the notes on the stave. As far as I'm concerned I've always just known, and I sometimes have to think carefully how to put things across when some-one asks about note reading.

I do find though that it pays off to break up the lesson with some singing and rhythm activities too, which helps with the concentration levels as well as developing innate musical skills (and I wish my first teacher had done this with me, but that was a very long time ago now ....... )

wholeheartedly!!!

Not qualified to comment really, but just more of a observation (shoot me down if I'm wide off the mark).

I play a lot of folk music, Irish particularly. I've seen really young children playing brilliantly from ear - they don't read a note. I saw one girl of about nine or ten playing Irish flute once - folk tunes from memory, complete with all the authentic ornamentation (not easy, but any stretch of the imagination absolutely brilliantly and very musically. She didn't read a note.

Now obviously this little girl will, eventually (or gradually) go on to read music, but is there there anything wrong with her getting to know where her fingers need to go, working on basic technique and playing simple tunes by ear until she is ready to read music...? If she is naturally talented and wants to make music, it would be a shame to hold her back..

As I say, am not qualified to comment on this. Just something I've observed from playing lots of folk music. I am a bit biased; I think traditional music teaching (or certainly my experience of it) practically ignores the skill of playing by ear/improvising, which is a great shame.

Jinxi, I agree whole-heartedly with what you say.

It was what I was trying to say earlier - we shouldn't only be confined to playing music that we can read!

I have taught people who are classically-trained and who are note-bound to such an extent that they have a severely under-developed ear, memory etc. On the other side of the coin I teach a self-taught pop musician who didn't read notation at all until a couple of years ago so his aural awareness, memory, ability to spot patterns etc. is highly-developed and it is the music reading that he is now working on.

In Cyrilla's 'Ideal World' BOTH aspects of music should be taught in order to develop all-round skills!

I just think it's very sad when I read about children who are only 'allowed' to play the notes they can read (there was a similar thread a little while back, I think, about a little girl who had spent six months playing thumbs and first fingers only because those were the only notes she could read ).

Music is much more than this!

Thanks everyone for all your advice.

So far we've been learning some notes and making up little tunes using them. It was only last week when we had a little look at notation.

I was after advice as i've never taught a pupil this age before and never taught away from notation. I've found over the years that most parents want their pupils to enter exams and understanding/reading notation and theory helps hugely with the sight-reading test.

I was taught little theory when i began playing although i was taught basic notation. When it came to the grade 5 theory test i struggled so i've always been a believer of teaching all this alongside.

I'll certainly be looking up the works of Kodaly, it sounds appropriate from what i've briefly read! Any recommended reads?

Will keep you posted on her progress!

I'll PM you re Kodály!

My son has been having regular music lessons (general rather than a specific instrument) in a group setting since he was just under 4! He can now read music pretty well , though he hasn't really transferred it to a piano yet. He can recognise different types of notes, eg minim, etc and can name the notes. So it's not impossible to teach a young child to read music, it's more about how you do it. By the way he can't read very well yet either!