4 Things that Make Sight Reading Easier

In my experience as a piano teacher of all ages for nearly 40 years, I believe the following 4 things make sight reading easier for the student and produce the desired progress more quickly:

#1 Correct note-reading strategy

#2 Age, maturity and tenacity

#3 Practice time and quality

#4 Understanding chord structure

These four things that make sight reading easier are a list made from my own opinion and experience. There certainly may be other great ideas from other teachers as well. I’ve come to believe these main factors over years of being a student myself and then throughout about 40 years of teaching. My students have been very young and past retirement age; complete beginners or having had some previous piano instruction. These four things apply to all ages.

Factor #1:
Correct Note-Reading Strategy

Of these four factors, I believe having a Note-Reading Strategy to be the most important, even critically essential, to making sight-reading easier. The other three factors are practically irrelevant. What advantage is it to maturely practice with tenacity for long periods of time without hardly any understanding of true and correct note reading? 

Unfortunately, these students who had used other methods – the standard ones in the industry – quite often needed a different thinking strategy to read and play proficiently. Trying to learn note names and key locations by rote copying just extends the time it takes to get the information in long-term memory, which makes sight-reading easier.

To explain my viewpoint, one of my students would make a good example.  I’ll call her Susan (not her real name) was a very pretty and very intelligent ten-year-old. She always listened and complied during her lessons and practiced regularly.  Susan had her first lesson with me in May, after school vacation had started. I asked her to play a portion of several pages in the method book she had been using. It was very apparent she had been having trouble playing for quite some time. In fact, she wasn’t entirely sure about Middle C – name or key location.

How many years have you had piano lessons, I asked pleasantly.  “About two years,” she told me. That told me the method she had been using was not working for her. I asked her if she would like to start with a new book, and she was happy with the idea.

I suspected that Susan would go quickly through the first book of The Revolutionary Piano Method.  After concentrating on the new way of thinking (view this post), orienting on Center F, and learning all four treble spaces – then using the spaces to name and locate the line notes – Susan made rapid progress. In fact, she was playing Level 3 books in a matter of two months. Susan had just needed an effective thinking approach in order to making sight-reading easier for her. She soon found her personal-best level – not too easy, not too difficult – and continued to make the steady progress I would normally expect. She was a very pleasant and rewarding student to have!

Factor #2:
Age/Maturity/Tenacity

I link these three into one factor since they are so tightly connected/related. With an older age, there is an increase in maturity which produces greater tenacity. I think all experience teachers generally know ahead of the first lesson with a particular aged student what to expect in terms of performance and focused attention span.

Generally, the adult student progresses much more rapidly than young students.. The biggest progress deterrent for adults seems to be little things like family and work leaving little practice time.  I’m convinced that short practice sessions that are regular are more productive than only a few long sessions in order to make sight-reading easier.  

To support this thinking, I’ll describe a teaching experience I had with lovely lady in her mid-60s who even surprise me with her quick progress.  JoAnn lived next to me for a year. We knew at her first lesson that our time together would be short, and it turned out to be 4 1/2 months. She was a from-scratch beginner but very much desired to learn. She bought a good keyboard, and we had weekly lessons without fail, sometimes twice a week. Time for practice was limited due to daily commitments, but she faithfully played 10 to 15 minutes before bedtime.

By the end of our 4 1/2 months of lessons, JoAnn played Clementi’s Sonatina – the first page – a bit slowly but very correctly! She could name all notes and the timing was correct, even with an imperfect tempo. We both were very pleased with her process and sight-reading ability!

Factor #3:
Practice Time and Quality

This is a close follower of the Age/Maturity/Tenacity category.  Generally, the more mature student has a tenacity and interest that produces a longer period of practice time – and more regular to boot. But even referring to my example student in #2, the length of time is not as effective as regular sessions. Though a longer practice session is desirable in order for the level of proficiency that teachers hope for, a steady and regular scheduled routine can often be quite adequate for satisfactory progress in making sight-reading easier. 

I may have students play a piece from the previous level so that the progress made is more apparent to them. They understand that a previous level will be much easier to play after progressing to a subsequent level and that it’s a continuing process. That can be very encouraging to expect having sight-reading become easier!

Factor #4:
Understanding Chord Structure

I feel that using chords are best added after a solid note-reading ability has been acquired.

A student’s introduction to playing piano is hindered (my opinion) by relying only on chord symbols and a single note melody line. Chord playing can be very impressive but also can interfere with interest and effort at learning bass note-reading. But after being proficient with bass clef playing, the addition of chording not only makes a performance more interesting and fun, it makes improvisation possible (if chord structure is understood). Playing more than you read is always satisfying!

Encouragement from the teacher and positive comments are also essential to the student’s success with playing piano. As a teacher, find at least one thing in the student’s performance that can honestly be praised; it could be posture, hand curving, or writing well-formed sharps and flats. Whatever the compliment, I have seen positive, complete turn-around in sour attitudes from students once they feel success in some area. Perhaps that is another factor to add to make sight-reading easier!

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