Improving Sight-Reading Skills

How I Train My Students to Sight-Read
With my students, I usually focus on sight-reading every few months, and more frequently with those who really need it. I do a "sight-reading intensive" for about a month, training them to incorporate daily sight-reading into their practice routine.  The aim of the intensive is to build good habits that they will continue, even after the "intensive" is over.

During the sight-reading intensive, I make them sight-read at every lesson for a month, about 5 minutes during each half hour lesson, or 10 minutes during each 45 minute lesson. At the lesson, I often use the "Line a Day" sightreading books.  These are published by Bastien and I can't say enough good things about them. 

For home practice, I loan out used books from my library that are 2 levels below their performance level. This is important!  Do not practice sight-reading at your performance level!  You should always practice sight-reading two levels below your performance level (and some students need to go 3 levels below if their sight-reading is really deficient).  Remember, it has to be easy enough to get it pretty much right on the first try. 

My students have to log in 2 songs a day on the back of their practice sheet. When they come back the next week, I test them on 2 or 3 songs from their log to make sure they truthfully practiced sight-reading.

Mental Preparation of the Score is Key
Yes! Mental preparation is more important than physical preparation. I learned this first-hand by observing the accompanist for our Symphonic Chorus in college.  I never saw her physically practice, but she was always tucked away in a study cubicle, hunkered over her choir scores.  She simply studied her music.  I imagine she also wrote in the chords.  And she was fantastic!  Boy did I learn my lesson by watching her.  Indeed, training them to study their music and analyze it before sight-reading is a must!  Our sight-reading exercises at the lesson begin with me asking the student many questions:

• What is the key signature?
• What is the time signature?
• What is the first note in the right hand?
• What is the first note in the left hand?
• (for beginners) Which hand position is this in?
• (for intermediate and advanced students) Which chords do you see in the left hand?*
• Do you see any scales in that phrase?*
• Do you see any possible trouble spots?

Then I ask them to hear the rhythm in their head before starting (even tap it on their lap).  I follow the procedure outlined in the Line-a-Day books because it is very effective (above list, minus the asterisk items, which are my additions)! Counting out loud is also a huge bonus if they can manage it.   

Sight-Read With a Metronome!
Next it's time to crack the whip! Translation: metronome. We count a measure out loud first, then proceed to sight-read.  Be careful to set the tempo to something slow like 50.  Here are my guidelines for sight-reading:

• During metronomic practice, going backward to correct your mistakes is against the law.
• Just keep one hand going if you have to! 
• Don't panic when you mess up.
• Just ad-lib. As long as it's in the scale, make something up if you have to.  But keep the beat going. I tell them that this is valuable training for playing with their future rock band (the music goes on, with or without you). They have to keep up!

You Must See the Chords in Your Music to Be a Good Sight-Reader!
I can't stress this enough!  As soon as chords start appearing in the child's music, you must train the child to recognize chords within his/ her music.  Chords are to music as words are to language.  Not seeing a chord is like reading the word "chord" as an illiterate person.  You only see the letters C-H-O-R-D, not a word.  The same thing applies in music reading.  If we don't see that C-E-G spells C major, our reading speed suffers.