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After years of struggling and thanks to taking up the recorder I am finally starting to read music. At least the treble stave anyway...
My background is in playing by ear-I've always been able to hear a piece of music and then play the melody,tho not always in the original key. But there's one area in which I'm weak, and that is in the ability to read a note and hear that note in my head.
For example I might play a piece of music from a sheet, translating what I see into a played note, but if I look at a random sheet and see the notes in my head, I don't hear that note. I can see that that note is a C and the next one is a D but if I try to sing it to myself I dont recognise the piece-it doesn't make sense. I'm not singing a C and a D. In fact I tried this earlier after playing Ode to Joy from a sheet. I could play it, even the left hand, great. But later I looked at the sheet and I couldn't hear the notes in my head. Its like I'm singing in the wrong key and it sounds off! And yet, now that I've thought of Ode to Joy I can hear the melody in my head. Weird.
So how does one learn to hear the notes that one reads? What is that skill called?

I've been where you are, and have made some progress.

I cannot yet look at a note on a staff and sing it at the correct pitch. However, I can do a decent job of looking at a simple music score and putting the melody together in my head. However, it will not be at the correct pitch. I use the jingle or learning tool of "do re mi fa so la ti do" that I first heard in the movie version of "The Sound of Music." Although the movie presentation of that song was in the major key version, it is easily adaptable to minor keys.

Even though I will have the pitch wrong, the intervals are correct. If I also get the timing correct, then I have the melody.

When you say you can see a C and D on the score, but, when you sing it, you do not hit those notes, and, cannot make out the melody, that suggests to me that you are not recognizing the intervals. For me, anyway, the do-re-mi song is a very helpful reference.

I dunno. I don't have it.

"Pitch memory" probably.

To look at a score, and sing it, is called "sight-singing". Lots of singers and musicians can do it with correct "relative pitch" (that is, the melody sounds OK, but you might be singing it in a different key than it's written in.). Fewer people can do it with "perfect pitch" (that is, if an "A" is written, you sing an "A").

One way to develop it (of course) is to get a singing teacher. Another way is to play it on keyboard, and learn to sing what you've just played. Eventually, you can do away with the keyboard; your mind will _know_ what the intervals sound like, and your voice will reproduce them.

I don't know what the name is, for "mentally hearing" the sound of a multi-part score. i can't do that, and I have lots of respect for people who can.

Absolute pitch is very rare and considered an innate ability that cannot be learned. Relative pitch is what you need to practice.

The technical term for "mental hearing" is audiation. I cannot do that with multiple parts but for a single part I noticed that my audiation is now much better than it used to. I think sightreading and ear training every day helps.

Maybe try a local choir for a year, and see it's effects

First sing through a book of simple folk songs then work on two part species counterpoint. Singing two part species counterpoint in your head is a revelation.

I do not sing lol
I CAN sing ( I got asked to join the choir as a school boy) I just choose not to.

Yes that's it I think. More study is required. I need to find time to knuckle down and study music.

If it's about recognizing intervals, I know the ideal app for you.
Funtional Ear Trainer on android. There is also an ipad app available

some more reads about it:

The most important skill that most players dont have
Contextual ear training

more...

I meant sing in your head (silent reading) but if you can't sing aloud you'll not be able to.

As others have said, unless you have perfect pitch, just reading it off the page without a reference to start from, you won't be able to sing the exact note. Very few people have perfect pitch.

But relative pitch is far, far more important, and you develop it by ear training. Joining a choir, listening to music while following with the score, singing along with it, practicing listening to intervals and learning to recognize them. (Do you know what the intervals are between the notes of the first line of The Stars & Stripes?) Of course, you need to be able to recognize the notes in the score instantly, in the first place.

BTW, I can sight-sing, but I need a 'reference note' to start off with, otherwise I can't sing in the correct key (because I don't have perfect pitch). You'll see choir directors or accompanists playing the first note on the piano prior to any a cappella singing, so that all the singers know which note to start from.