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Hi, I want to say thanks to Dan for the idea of handing the music book to the child and having them read the notes for the teacher to play. I've waited 2 weeks to get to do this with a particular 9 year old having trouble reading notes. (He missed last week.)

He looked surprised and said "This is hard". I let him sit in my good chair, and I sat at the piano. When he couldn't identify a note I had him walk to the music stand to match up notes with the chart. He picked the chart up off the stand to keep it handy with the book! So I had him put the chart back, explaining that he is to keep the note in mind as he goes to match it on the chart.

This child is just starting Level 1 after a year of little work. So, thank you Dan for these suggestions. VERY helpful for poor note readers.

A few of my students really enjoy sitting in "the chair" and being told "now, you be the teacher for a minute" when we do something like this.

I haven't tried Dan's idea yet, but I certainly will.

This is great Anne, thanks! And glad it helped. I love the "surprised" look. Somehow you know you're getting somewhere when you catch them with something they're completely not expecting.

I do that with some of my younger students as well, I find it useful when we are writing down their homework tasks and I ask them to show me what I've asked them to do for homework or to explain to me back what I have just explained to them, and I find it works well with them!

This way I find that they have a more productive week inbetween our lessons as I feel then they are going away fully understanding what they need to do for homework.