Don't Toss the Books

With many students moving into new books this fall, I have noticed some of the students are so excited to be done with the old level they just want to throw the book away.  I've decided to encourage them to keep their old book by using it as sight reading material. They can go back early in the book to songs they haven't played for a while and hopefully be encouraged by how easy it is to sight read them now.  I am also trying to incorporate sight reading more often into weekly lessons to help them develop the ability to play the pieces straight through, keeping tempo even if they stumble a bit.  We recently had a syllabus adjudicator give a presentation and she told us rather than have a child stop at every mistake while sight reading and fix it, she would rather hear a few fumbles but see that they can play it straight through, as that's what sight readers are called on to do. They may take up to a minute or so to scan the piece first.  So sight reading is also a great application of theory - teaching them to recognize chord patterns and intervals, and notice dynamics and articulation from the start.  Now with a plan for sight reading, I'll be taking in every idea I can find to help them play songs by ear.  I've done this with one of my students.  She chose a hymn she is familiar with, and I helped her chord it.  We wrote down just the lyrics with the chord letters above.  She's doing well, and I hope to try something like that with more of my students.