I have a 50 year old student who is completing Faber Level 3B. The problem is that now he tries to memorize each piece because he can't manage to read and play at this level.

It has occurred to me that he is doing this because his reading is weak. He enjoyed the Adult Christmas for All Time Book 2. I think he needs more work at level 2 to improve his reading. Any suggestions or books you particularly like?

I find that short (4-8 measures) exercises are best for this problem. They can quickly study and analyze the material and the length makes it feel less daunting, like they have a real chance of making it through successfully.

There are lots of books out there for that purpose. Bastien Line a Day, Berlin's Four Star Sight Reading, etc.

Thanks Minniemay, I'll look for these.

Minniemay, after your post I recalled picking up a sightreading book at a workshop a few years ago. On my bookshelf I found "Sight Reading & Rhythm Every Day" Book 2B by Helen Marlais and Kevin Olson. I had never read through it. Played a few pages and it looks VERY good!

Next time I'm out, I think I'll get some additional levels of this sighreading series.

I have recently come to think that sightreading is not a generalized skill but one quite specific to the type of material.

Sightreading novel material will not do much to improve a student's ability to read the type he's working on. To help it has to be a similar as possible in terms rhythm, harmony, fingering.

And, I think, doing a large amount of sightreading new material doesn't improve the skill as much as taking short sections and thoroughly learning them before moving on.

If your sight reading gets good when playing lots of similar material, then it is possible that you are following familiar patterns, half-predicting them. Though your actual playing may sound better, is your ability to read actually improving?

Well, good sightreading IS recognizing patterns. Being able to predict what is coming up is important. So the trick is, once you get comfortable with a certain kind of pattern, change it up.

Minniemay, would you be open to saying that it *includes* recognizing patterns as a main component rather than that it is that? I have a feeling that this is important.

I'm using the Marlais sight reading books with two of my students. They are working out well!

Absolutely. The ability to recognize patterns is what frees up the eye and the mind to see what is out of the pattern.

Sightreading is the first time only, no idea what something sounds like, never having seen it before.

I am more concerned about reading, meaning that if the 2nd and 3rd reading starts to snap into place really quickly, eventually the 1st reading (true sightreading) will be excellent.

for the idea of short and reasonably easy pieces for practice.

Good to hear it. I'm seeing that there is a well designed structure to the 2B book that I have. (I received it free at a workshop, but never appreciated it until today.) So far I've played 3/4 the way through.

I suggested the sight reading book to my student this evening. He's going to think about it. I don't think he's entirely convinced that he would benefit from this work. I had him work on the first page, and it is NOT too easy for him. If he chooses not to get the book, I may use my copy for a few minutes exercises during lessons.

My concern is reading also. This student is not reading well. So even though it's called a sight reading book, I'm concerned with improving overall reading.

He has spent weeks working on just one page of Canon in D (version in 3B book). In other words, 2nd and 3rd readings are not "snapping into place".

Taking the time to work through this book will give needed practice with rhythm and reading. I hope he will do the work.

Hi Ann from Kentucky,

There are no short cuts to learning to sight-read ... adults might think that their worldly-wise experiences give them a head start ... but as you have found, gaffers tend to memorize
rather than genuinely sight-read the keyboard music.

My solution to maintain interest is always to find a piece of music that the adult REALLY LIKES ... like a an appetising carrot (that’s of course if you like carrots ... my preference is spinach feta) to ease the boredom of hammering away at so many repeats.

Hope you are having good weather,
regards ... btb

This raises a red flag for me. Usually by Faber 3B students should be fluently reading steps and skips, plus intervals up to a 6th. If he is spending weeks on one page, don't you think his reading level is below 3B?

I've worked with the slowest of the slow readers, so I know how you feel. Do you think he'd be willing to do drill-and-kill worksheets on note naming? I've discovered that people who recognize notes instantly tend to sight read much faster than those who were taught to count up or down from the landmark notes (or middle C!!).

When I returned to playing, I made copies of the grand staff and placed one in each car,one in my purse, one in the bathroom (during hair drying!), you name the place. I would study it every chance I got, as I had forgotten quite a few of the notes, esp bass clef, no surprise. This really helped me get back on tract very fast and my sight reading is quite decent and FAR better than my memory.

(ps. I did not study WHILE driving, but while stopped at red lights- great use of those little moments )

Just a thought.

I think that there is a component of processing (seeing the music and producing the muscle movements directly) and a component of retrieval (recognizing and reproducing thoroughly learned prememorized fragments).

I think that for the really good sightreaders retrieval is about 95%. If so, that has implications for how to practice it.

There may actually be little difference between sightreading something new with familiar components, and playing a learned piece using the sheet music.

There is also the issue of the eyes moving ahead of the fingers. That is a tough thing for most people to do as they feel more comfortable watching the note as they play it rather than relying upon short-term memory to continue the measure while the eyes move onto the next for processing/recognition.

Have them start out by looking/studying measure one before playing it (start with a piece they already know to develop this skill), and then cover it up, THEN ask them to play it while looking at measure 2 which is still uncovered. Then about halfway through measure 2, cover that up, and continue this through the whole piece.

Thanks for the comments. I think I need more information. So I'll pull out flashcards and see how quickly he can name and play notes. But I really think he will do just fine with that.

Some worksheet drills with note naming and interval naming could be helpful.

But I'm thinking about Tim R's comment about processing. I have a feeling it's something about processing. This is the student who had GREAT trouble with pedaling. (And it's much improved now.) I think for example he sees that 16th notes are coming up and races into it, forgetting to count...an element of anxiety "Oh, no, it's going to get faster and it's going to be difficult". And this is where taking more time to tap and count prior to playing could help.

The sightreading book surprised me by having more than drills. It has suggestions along with each exercise. And rhythm exercises. Feels like you have two well respected professionals (Marlais and Olson) at your piano telling you their best advice for looking over a piece before playing. And different exercises. With some exercises they may suggest that you sing the melody, another they may suggest playing just the downbeat of each measure (while counting) etc. as preparation to playing the piece as written. I'm thinking this would be helpful.

btb, choosing material he likes is easy. He likes most pieces and is happily working through Piano Literature Bk 1 also (with difficulty). BTW, the weather here is very unusual. In 40's to 50's and rain for weeks. Perennials are peeking up in January. Very strange. How's your weather?

AZN, since Level 3B is not easy for him, that's my signal that he's really not ready to move to more complex material. But he was doing well until getting to the end of 3B. He tends to be prepared. It may be that he simply hasn't put much work in these past few weeks. But still, it is obvious that work at this level is not easy for him.

Sometimes when you find something like this happening, it usually means that a change in their practice routine is called for. Perhaps he's still in the habit of playing through pieces 2-3 times a day and doesn't realize that you need to do more detailed practicing? It really should not take this long at this level, so it's worth talking to him about. Make sure he knows that the things you do during the lesson is exactly how you want him to practice when he's at home. Sometimes they don't get this unless you say it specifically.

Thanks Morodiene, I'll get more info and give more guidance regarding practice at home.

I'm looking over P Canon to figure out where the difficulty may lie. I suggested from the start to block the broken chords. Initially he did not do as advised, but instead came up with an elaborate analysis which did not help him at all.

In retrospect I see that the chord names confused him instead of helping...it's as though he was looking for chords in root position. Next I had suggested looking at the shape of the chord. They are mostly 1st and 2nd inversions. Anyway, after a few weeks page 1 is coming along OK and he's on to page 2 now.

But I don't see how reading broken chords could be so difficult, unless he is only trying to read one note at a time. So I think I need to have him work on playing chords with inversions (as opposed to note naming)...basics that need more time.

Have you had him just play the blocked chords in the LH alone? No need to identify the name, just read all the notes in the measure (if it's one chord/measure, I don't have it in front of me) and play them simultaneously. When he can do that with fluency, then have him play the RH as written while blocking LH chords. When he can do that fluently, then have him play as written.

Has he had sufficient previous experience with broken chords in all their inversions?

By sorting through the issue here on PW, I've come to the conclusion that he has not. We'll focus on that.

It was really helpful to talk this over with everyone, and then see that the issue is more specific than a general poor reading. So I know where to go from here. (I've only had one other student complete 3B and he had no problem like this.) So thanks to all who posted.

This year I've looked over RCM guidelines for scales and I'm having students do more scale work. Now I see I need to add more work with inversions too.

Hi Morodiene,
In this arrangement, LH has a single note, followed by RH single notes. I've encouraged him to play the LH note then play the RH broken chord. It was difficult for him to see the pattern changes. He has the book "Scales, Chords and Arpgeggios" and I'll start assigning some work from it regarding chord inversions.

OK, then have him block the chords on the RH in the same format as I described above. He needs to see the relationship from one chord to the other...do any notes remain the same? Which ones change? Chances are they change by step, so blocking it out helps with that.

I've put the book away, so I don't know right off if there are common chord tones, but I will be careful to point out common tones when they occur.

In the future I will not just tell a student to block the chords. Instead, we will spend time in the lesson blocking chords, and looking at a descending pattern which moves the hand down one note at a time. They'll get an introduction to it, and I'll get a sense of whether the student finds it difficult.

But also I'll add inversion work to the routine way I teach. I now tend to start lessons with a few minutes of scales. I'll get a plan for chord inversions too, so that it is not just introduced and then neglected.

As a beginner, he doesn't have a memory bank to do retrieval from. He has to do it all with processing, and that is inherently more difficult.

Your ideas in the later posts about blocking chords, etc., seem to me to be right on target with what is needed to produce some of those memory fragments.

From an (adult) student's point of view: Bastien Technic Level 3 has several pages of exercises on inversions, which I found really helpful in getting comfortable at recognizing inversions and getting to the correct fingering for them. I spent about 2 months on them, and they really helped.

I try to never assign a piece that has elements a student hasn't encountered before. Skill preparation is everything when it comes to student success.

Thanks for the comments. Blocked and broken chord inversions sound like what's needed. I looked at RCM guidelines and have a plan for moving forward.

Yes, I agree about skill preparation. And some need more preparation than others. I'll try to be more careful about this.

Problem: skill preparation MAY have nothing to do with reading.

But a student who has never played triad inversions will have more trouble simply because they aren't in the hand.

It's a catch 22 situation.

Some things have to be learned by rote, and in that reading plays a minimal role, at most.

But then the rote skills have to be recognized while reading, which is a tricky process.

I think it is all a balance, lot's of common sense involved.

Right, and it's a process for the teacher to really be able to assess what's going on. If there's a situation where the student is having trouble and it could be from a number of different sources, the best thing to do is process of elimination as to the culprit.

Ann, don't get discouraged by these comments because every teacher encounters them, even ones who have been teaching for a long time. You'll get to the heart of it as long as you're not afraid to totally change direction if need be (like doing more supplementary work in other books to work on music that is parallel to what you're doing in the method book). The method books are great for introducing new material usually, but they don't often have enough practice in applying new concepts as a student may need.

Thanks Morodiene. It also occurred to me that this student has not used the theory book that goes with the series, saying he already understands the concepts. He can probably identify, for example, what inversion a chord is in. But he likely has not had enough repetition for it to be easy. For a time, I used a theory book on hand to carefully go over concepts with him (and to keep track of what we'd covered).

So here's the plan:
Show him a pattern for practicing chord inversions (RCM pattern), and practice at lessons.
Get out the theory book and assess how readily he can identify inversions.
Suggest the sightreading book.
Hold off on going to the next level in method series.
Bring back out MWC 1-2 and work from it.
Continue with a developing artist Bk 1 that he has.

I'd really like to find a supplementary book that is a bit easier than the 2 I listed above (more along the lines of Faber 2B). But I don't care much for the Gold Star book at that level. Another adult student has enjoyed a certain hymn book. It is a perfect fit for him. So I could inquire as to what type of music he likes. I'd like to have a book from which he can play his assignment fluently within 1 week to give more reading practice especially if he does not go for the sight reading book idea.

In order to choose appropriate supplementary books that are not a part of a series (with corresponding levels), take a look at the things required of him now in 3B, and then look at the music in repertoire books and see if the skillets are similar. I think any book will do as long as the music is clean/easy to read and the skills match what he can currently do. Then it's just a matter of finding something he'd enjoy learning.

Right. It's a teacher's job to introduce these concepts and find them in the music. So, for example, we can teach arpeggios, inversions, and broken chords, then after the student has had some time to work on them, magically find a piece that utilizes those techniques.

When I work on sightreading with my students, I do more than one example. The first pass, I study the score with the student, even if it's only 4-8 measures. What time signature is it? What key signature is it? Which hand goes first? What's the fingering? What does the melodic line look like? What about the left hand, what kind of accompaniment does it have? Let's clap or speak through the rhythm a couple of times. Are there any recognizable figures? After we do this, the student has a much better chance of sightreading success.

I myself do a lot of sightreading in front of my students and they see that it's not always perfect. They see me stumble and sometimes break cardinal rules of sightreading (like fixing mistakes). They hear me counting out loud, and they also hear me say, "Whatever!" if I've just screwed something up.

Ann is right about pattern recognition being important to sightreading. But it's all kinds of pattern recognition - note recognition, aural recognition ("I bet I know where this progression goes"), rhythmic recognition, even formal recognition ("Hey wait a second, this is rounded binary form!"). It's recognition drawn from experience playing a lot of music. It's a lot of work prepping a student to sightread and anticipate correctly, and it can be so, so tricky.

The only other sightreading book I've used that I like just as much as Marlais is an old, old sightreading tome from like, the 1960s. I can't even remember the title of it, but one of my teachers lent it to me to see if I could get through it. Each unit started with a list of rhythms and melodic patterns for familiarization, and then followed it with 10-15 exercises or pieces with various combinations of those rhythms and melodies. Some of the pieces were "real" and some of them were just exercises. And every single one of them had a time limit. I had a lot of fun but the end of the book was a riot because I'd look at the page with all the black on it and say, "No way." And blunder through it anyway.

The Marlais is successful because (and I'm totally biased here) I think the eurhythmics built into it works. Introducing a strong rhythmic component and coupling it with five-finger patterns in different keys is a very good idea. There's a lot of prepwork before the last pieces in each unit and it's very similar to the kind of prepwork I'll do with my kids, like rhythm drills, intervallic drills, taking a 5-finger melody and transposing it, etc. And now I'm out of time so I will hit the post button.

(mostly student-side)
Our ability as adults to understand concepts can throw us a curve ball if we're not careful. In music it has to not only be in our mind as an idea, but in our hands, from the page to the piano, in our ears, back and forth. I was several years into studying my first instrument involving lessons, when we realized that I barely knew note names. I did a crash course in theory and got rather good at writing things out on paper and naming things. After passing my exams I had the nagging feeling that this wasn't good enough, so I went through every bit of theory I did, playing it in order to make a connection. Since then I've gone through it a third time, associating everything specifically to piano. I also try to name and recognize the chords in the music itself.

If your adult student was motivated enough to study theory on his own, I wonder if he'd be willing to try to make the connection in a practical sense now, so that it's real for him in the written music and over to piano. That could be any of the things suggested here, as well as knowing he has to get this part, and making it part of how he tackles pieces he works on at home. For example, you can study the score before working on learning to play it, try to recognize chords and their inversions, play them, play around with them physically instead of just "knowing" that G, G/B, and G/D are inversions of the same chord intellectually.

I'm thinking that as adults we are capable of working more independently than children, but the hangup is that we don't always know what we should be focusing on.

He already has Scales, Chords, Cadences and Arpeggios book and didn't want to buy another theory book. (But for me it's much easier to keep up with a graded theory series.) He felt like if he had any questions he could look it up in his book. I have a copy, but not that familiar with it. So this thread is motivating me to look it over.

And duh! It finally occurred to me that I have numerous graded repertoire series on hand. I need to look them over and offer him some choices. Plan to start with looking at Festival Collection Bk 2, Norton's Connections Bk 2, and a FJH Jazz, Rags and Blues series.

I bought all these as I was gathering info about materials available, and now I get to start using them.

At the next lesson I'll see how it's going with MWC 1-2. We left off using that book some time back, so I need to refresh my memory about what progress was made. Just know he wasn't motivated at the time, but I had brought it in too early and he may be ready for it now.

So I'll be playing through some of these books today and look forward to getting a better idea of what is in them. I love it when I discover things in the process of looking for suitable student materials.

Thank you all of you who have shared your thoughts on this thread.

SO true!!!

As my friend, a programmer, used to say, "You never kill the bugs. You just drive them further into the wall."

LOL about the bug quote. I used the above icon for fun, although I have no idea if the icon has any meaning.

Funny thing: in code that is : f :, but without spaces. But what does it mean?

Friendly alien?

A thought I wanted to add:

Years ago I mixed and matched at least five different methods with an adult student, who ended up being one of the best readers I've ever taught.

Having so many methods gave us the option of discussing each selection in each book, and it "blanketed" concepts. There was a tendency for method to catch something that the others missed, and I was able to throw all the common NON-method book pieces into the mix, only worrying about level of difficulty.

I used the same method myself to learn to read German fluently, getting high school textbooks from four different high school students, all of whom had different series.

Each "method" (series) taught the same concepts, but there were different idioms and unique vocabulary in each. Since sooner or later EVERY word commonly used in a language becomes important, using four times the materials allowed me to advance more quickly in ALL of them, and also to make the leap into real German literature.

I can now speed-read in German, and I started after that age of 30 from zero...

Your success with teaching yourself German is impressive.

This icon looks like someone using a snorkel. Perhaps it means "I'm in over my head".

Thanks for sharing your experience with using a variety of materials with an adult student.

I have a friend who did something like that with bowling, and he's bowled 13 perfect (300) games in his first two years.

He took lessons, bought videos, etc. But he was having trouble throwing as well in league as he did in practice. One of the pros explained to him that the oil was never the same twice, and it took 10 years to learn to read it and adjust.

So he joined ten leagues, and learned it in one year.

Yes, review and repetition are important.

As I recall, this student already has a Fun Time popular book, but only worked on one piece. And in reading an article about tips for teaching, I see that frequently the Fabers put students through one Fun Time book after another before progressing to the next level (depending on how easy it is for the students). Since I'm seeing some difficulties, I'll guide this student to do more work at the current level (or even a bit easier). And there are plenty of materials to choose from.

Thanks for all the discussion. I've learned that I need to add more guidance about triad inversions to my teaching. And I've checked out Marlais' sightreading books. And had not previously spent time with Book 2 of Norton's Connections (I really like Bk 3 and 4, but now have come to appreciate book 2 also.)

My plan a week ago had been to move to Level 4. Now I've taken a careful look at what is going on, and I have a much better plan. Thank you to all who shared your thoughts.