Many years ago I taught a new learner who was what you might call a ‘reluctant sight-reader’. They pretty much guessed the notes, hitting a piano key and hoping it was correct rather than working it out properly.
Frustrating, right?
I found that if I corrected them as they were playing, this made it worse. Relying on me, they probably thought, “oh if I go wrong my teacher will tell me, so I don’t need to think too hard!”.
I needed to find a way to help my student realise they have to think for themselves and read rather than guess.
My first strategy was to cut out any correcting while they played. We talked about it afterwards instead so I was no longer their personal “mistake prompter”! The student had to take on that responsibility and it immediately cut out some of the guessing.
My second was to come up with ways to get them more invested and actually want to play the sight-reading exercise right. To find a way to motivate and inspire.
I decided to turn it into a game. The following two ideas are really simple and easy to implement.
1. ‘Reading Roller’ only needs a dice and a sight-reading exercise of your choice. Roll the dice and your student has to make fewer mistakes than the number on the dice to win. If you haven’t already discovered Google Dice, it’s a really useful tool for generating a random number and the dice number can be bigger than six. You could also ask Alexa or an equivalent to give you a number!
2. ‘Counting Champ’ can be played over several weeks and is a fun sight-reading challenge. Put a sight-reading exercise in front of your student and keep a tally of mistakes made (you could limit this to note accuracy or alternatively mark both rhythm and notes – to suit the individual student). Students have to beat their previous score. You could even set a target to reach.
By far the biggest impact in my studio, however, has come from a roaring lion and a collection of cute garbage bins! It’s amazing how much more invested a student is in getting the notes right when there is a game (and a leaderboard!) involved.
“As a teacher the drag and drop notes are incredible! I love how I can tailor it to the range of notes a beginner knows, or focus on a particular set of notes that are recent and relevant”.
Music Teacher
Games like ‘Don’t Wake Lenny’ and ‘Garbage Monsters’ are fully customisable by the teacher. The notes are draggable up or down the stave, making them perfect if a student has only learnt a few notes up to those who know all the lines and spaces.
Set the notes you want to test and once the student has played them on their instrument (and/or named them), choose a score using the in-built tools. This is added to the overall game score giving extra motivation to really focus on getting the notes correct.
I have found them invaluable for directional reading and recognising steps, skips and bigger intervals. Plus my piano players have been able to practice playing in many different hand positions – great for those students who are reluctant to move out of their ‘safe middle C position’.
Find out more about how to access this collection of beginner reader games here. They are playable on most devices including computer, laptop, tablet and smartphone. They also come with a set of colourful printable leaderboards to pin up on your music studio wall.
Let me know if you have any questions.
