TS ttt eee eee ewewuuuwuuuUuLUU sLB015 (ntroduction ‘Teaching beginners to sight read is a vital component of any good choral program and Sight Reading 101 does all the heavy lifting for you, the teacher. The teacher information pages contain relevant, practical ideas on how to improve your beginners’ sight reading skills along with many pages of sequential, reproducible exercises for daily classroom use. Because the exercises are reproducible, Sight Reading 101 is also very helpful to those schools with small or non-existent choral music budgets. ‘Teaching beginners to sight read can be challenging; VERY, VERY challenging. Asa young teacher, I was surprised at how difficult it was for me to leam to teach sight reading. Since T was blessed to have had great teachers who taught me to read well, I honestly thought “How hard could teaching, reading skills really be?” Many years of tril and error, coupled with large doses of Edwin Gordon, Carl Orff and Zoltin Kodaly, helped shape my method for teaching sight reading, making it eas for both my students and myself To the current generation of students raised on smart phones, video games, reality TV shows, participation trophies and instant gratification, the lengthy process of becoming proficient music readers can seem dreary and downright tedious if not approached with care. Consider these facts + As little as twenty years ago, a large majority of school-aged students saw printed music cach Sunday in a hymnal in church. Today, many churches have removed the hymnals from the pews and project the words without musie notation on a screen + As little as thirty years ago, school age students heard the I-IV-V-I chord progression in popular music from big bands, to Elvis, the Rolling Stones, and the 1980s “hair” bands. Even if students did not grow up in a musical household, traditional Western harmony was 4 part of their daily lives. With the rise of hip-hop and music sampling in the 90s, school- aged students do not automatically hear or identify with that chord progression as it is not 4 guarantee in popular music, + As little as forty years ago, almost every school age child received some form of piano instruction. Today’s student is more likely to have had private athletic instruction rather than private music instruction. Keeping today’s students engaged in learning the essential skill of music reading is difficult for even the most experienced teachers. Knowing how to systematically break down sight reading into manageable daily portions will help lower that frustration level for both teacher and students. Sight Reading 101 will help your students learn to become literate musicians and have fun while learning!{ O Habite of Highly Effective Gight Reading Teachers ‘Teaching sight reading for over twenty-five years and watching talented colleagues work with my students has assisted me in determining how best to help you and your students succeed. It is important to develop good teaching habits. The most effective teachers 1 have ever known have developed the following habits when they teach their stadents to sight read. If you are a beginning teacher or you struggle with teaching sight reading, implementing these ten habits could change he sway you teach and the way your students lear, Effective Sight Reading Teachers Are Sequential Music teachers often say that children learn music the way they leam language, Babies team language predictably, They lear to babble, repeat nonsense syllables, form simple words with meanings, form simple sentences, then more complex sentences and ideus and finally, they ead the written word, If we take that idea to heart and apply it to teaching music reading, we tmust frst teach our students to hear rhythm and pitch combinations before we can begin to teach them fo read them. . “An adult reads to a child for many years before expecting the child to read without help. Why ‘don’t we have the same expectations of our students when they are beginning to learn to read ‘music? Our students look, dress and act like hormonal “tweens” and teens. However, many tte toddlers in their music hearing and reading proficiency. Taking that idea to heart should help you start atthe beginning and meet your students where they are, Students must Keep & steady beat before they can read rhythms. Students must match pitch consistently before they an decipher written pitch notation and/or reproduce it, Once Trealized those two unassailable truths, everything changed regarding how I taught sight reading. ‘Music education researcher Edwin Gordon said that children must first ear and comprehend (audiate) the rhythm or pitch combination before they can reproduce it. Only after being able to hear, then comprehend and finally reproduce a combination of rhythms and/or pitches tan students have any success in trying to read them. If you stay true to this idea, you too will forever alter the way you teach your students to read music. You will no longer expect beginning readers to read pitch and rhythm at the same time. You will no longer expect Your students to read music successfully in unison until each child can first match pitch. You will no longer expect your students to sight read cleanly in parts until they can sight read cleanly in ‘unison, Your teaching—and, more importantly your students” leaming—will be transformed when you fully embrace the idea that no one can READ what they cannot HEAR, v t 1 1 1 1 1 COOKESGEEHECOHCOSE AAARAARAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOEHEOOOOESVv weer wren veruvewovvuvrunuUTUUUUUUYUUUUYVUUE Effective Sight Reading Teachers Separate Rhythm and Pitch Have you ever noticed and been frustrated that your choir reads rhythms more quickly than pitoh? Don’t be; there is a scientific reason for it, All human beings have a separate pitch and rhythm aptitude. Almost every person who becomes a professional musician has a higher pitch than shythm aptitude, On the other hand, most people in the general population have a higher rhythm than pitch aptitude. Tis difference helps explain why it is so hard for us (the professional musicians) to understand why our students (who are, for the most part, the general population) lear pitch slower than rhythm. Accept that fact and adjust your teaching. S Begin with teaching your students to match pitch and keep a steady beat. Next, introduce separate pitch and rhythm exercises. (Separate pitch and rhythm exercises on pp. 14-25) ‘Teach pitch and rhythm daily and separately at the beginning of the school year. The rhythm. learning will move faster than the pitch learning in the beginning. Eventually, however, after teaching sequentially, the pitch will catch up to the rhythm, Be patient, don’t panic and don’t skip ahead, ‘Teaching Rhythm. First have students try to tap a steady beat as you snap or clap it. Using ‘a metronome can also prove very helpful when implementing this step. Once steady beat is established, students may echo clap, tap and stomp rhythm patterns. Ideas for finding and keeping a beat and echoing rhythms can be found on pp. 11-12. When they are successfully keeping a steady beat and echoing simple rhythm patterns, you may give them simple rhythm. reading exercises. Rhythm reading exercises can be found on pp. 14-15, ‘Teaching Pitch. Begin by helping students find the difference between their singing and speaking voice. Use sirens and yawn sighs to help students feel the difference between these two uses of their voice, Exercises for distinguishing the difference between speaking and singing can be found on p. 11. Next, work on pitch matching. (Ideas for teaching pitch matching, can be found on p. 12.) Most beginning choirs will have approximately five to six reproducible pitches in common. Using these common pitches, have students echo sing pitch patterns in the tonic triad on a neutral syllable (ike “bum bum bum”). Once students are successfully reproducing pitch on neutral syllables, add solfege syllables and Curwen hand signs (see p. 48 for a Curwen hand sign chart), Once students are successfully singing the tonic triad with syllables, add stepwise movement and more difficult skips. Always begin each new pattern on ‘neutral syllable and then proceed to solfege and hand signs. Finally, write out very simple and short pitch patterns on a staff using whole notes as place holders. Do not include any “rhythms” in this step; each whole note can serve as a place holder for the pitch and receives, one beat. Exercises for reading pitches without rhythm can be found on pp. 15-25. Combining Pitch and Rhythm, Remembering that rhythm will probably move faster than pitch, always start with easy combinations. When beginning a sight reading exercise including both pitch and rhythm, teach students to first chant the rhythm only. Then, chant the rhythm on solfege syllables, Combined pitch and rhythm exercises can be found on pp. 27-48. When those two steps are successful, begin to sing the exercise in rhythm. Note: For most beginning choirs that sight read daily, it can take from six weeks to two months before they should see rhythm and pitch combined in one sight reading exercise. L805Effective Sight Reading Teachers Use a Consistent Rhythm and «9Pitch Counting System Use the same system daily and your students will soon be “speaking the language of music.” eae say chythmn or pitch system seems 10 work as Tong as you are absolutely consistent ‘with it, Using the same counting and solfege systems throughout a school system in every tlementary music and secondary choir, band and orchestra class is highly beneficial as this homogenous approach helps everyone “speak the same Tanguage.” It also avoids confusion among students when they move from school to school or from one discipline to another within the district. (at your schoo! district does not have a curriculum in place, it's never 100 late to get together with the other music teachers and create one.) In all counting and pitch systems, CONSISTENCY is as import methodology Which will insure the development of stronger musi Rhythm, Many different systems work well. Tuse the Eastman system and have found great aaesece with it [have seen teachers have suecess with the following major counting systems te Standard: 1 2 30k 4 & Kodily: ta ta tog fot Pitch. I have found movable-Do solfege to be the easiest and most effective way 10 teach beginners to sight read in majorkeys. [have also seen successful teachers use ‘movable numbers (Gabetitute 1-2-3-4-5-67 for Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-La-Ti) and fixed-Do (where Do remus oa c vamatter the key signature). In minor keys, La-based minor in movable-Do solfege is the tcasiest and most effective way to introduce minor keys to beginners. x oe w& @ S Se S & @ @ So wo oe © BR ARR A AAA AAA OAAOEAAEOEO HELVee ww wrwrwwvwrwewrwwwrwvrnrurwwwe BiB01s 5 Effective Sight Reading Teachers Know That Students Cannot Read What They Cannot Audiate ‘One cannot sing what one cannot hear. Famed music education researcher Edwin Gordon stated that audiation is the ability o hear and comprehend music that is not physically present. ‘As musicians, itis almost impossible for us to tun off our audiation skills. Think of how many times per day a song pops into your head; you can hear every note of the song even when the music is not physically being played or sung. Now, imagine that you did not hear any music inside your head unless the music was actually being played or sung. Many of our students do not regularly auditate until we teach them how to do so. Many beginning singers seem to sing ‘without hearing, indicating that they have not yet learned to audiate while singing. They are truly singing without listening, a very foreign concept to a trained musician, ‘Audiation must be taught, and I suggest introducing it as follows: 1) Ask every student in the room to pick their favorite song and sing it silently in their head: NO HUMMING! Most students can do this pretty successfully. Tell them that the “place in their brain” where they hear the song is where they audiate. 2) Next, ask them to try to audiate something you sing, tap or clap to them in the “the same place in their brain”; again NO HUMMING. 3) Finally, let them sing the sound they audiated, Remind them often of the “place in their brain” that hears music to help them master this essential skill Effective Sight Reading Teachers Know That Slower Is Better ‘© Inexperienced choral directors often take a very fast tempo while teaching students to sight read, and in most cases this is simply because professional musicians can process the music at a much faster rate than beginners. I was one of those teachers many years ago. During my seventh or eighth year of teaching, I slowed down to quarter note = 60 and an amazing thing happened: My students’ mistakes improved dramatically and everything seemed so much easier! Imagine my surprise. Using the “slower is better” technique will help give students more time to decipher the music, Giving students more “think time” to look ahead and process what is coming next will help your students to make fewer mistake.BLbors 6 Effective Sight Reading Teachers Use Curwen Hand Signs © All students should be required to lean and use Curwen hand signs. A pianist presses down a key and produces a pitch likewise, a trumpet player presses a valve and blows into the trumpet the ‘comrect way and produces a pitch, For singers, reading and finding a pitch i abstract because there ate no keys or valves to push, Hand signs can give singers a tangible way in which to find pitches. Hand signs must move up and down in the direction the pitches move rather than stay in one place. When hand signs stay in one place, “monotone”, they are of no value, Remind students daily that Do is waist high, Mi is shoulder high and Sol is head high. ‘A Curwen hand sign chart is available on p. 48. I display a large poster of the hand signs (in stepwise manner) at the front of my classroom and refer to it throughout the year. My students think of itas their “cheat sheet.” The daily visual reminder reinforces the hand signs in a very positive manner. ‘Teaching hand signs to students with dyslexia or other special needs requires more time and care. At the beginning, allow those students who struggle to do what a kindergarten teacher would do with a struggling reader: track the pitches and rhythms with their finger. Do not let finger tracking continue forever; rather, encourage students to begin by only signing the Do pitch. Constantly encourage students to move from tracking to hand signs and if, after reasonable amount of time, a student cannot move forward during the class, assign them before or after school tutorials to give them more individual attention. It can take up to one semester to get all students successfully using hand signs. Effective Sight Reading Teachers Sight Read Daily Sight reading isa skill that must be practiced daily in order to be successful. Even on concert days, plan some audiation work or read a simple rhythm pattern to reinforce skills, There is simply no substitute for daily repetition of skills. ‘Vary your teaching methods each day to increase student engagement by incorporating games nd competitions (between sections andl choirs). Read the music upside down, sit whenever ‘you see a quarter note or play another game of your own choosing, Unless you are unloading the fundraising truck, you are nevertoo busy to practice sight reading. Effective Sight Reading Teachers Know That Student Learning Does Not Follow a Steady Upward Curve Each time a new concept is introduced, be prepared to I reteach :i, As a young teacher, it seemed logical to assume that I would introduce a concept to my students, they would quickly raster that concept and we would immediately move on to the next concept. Instead of @ straight, upward learning curve, teaching sight reading is more often two steps forward and one step backwards. “The greatest leap for beginners occurs when combining pitch and rhythm. At that point, students vill be able to read fairly complex rhythms and pitches separately. However, when combined, students cannot process both concurrently at the same level. Simplify both the pitch and rhythm ‘when they are fist combined. Do the same thing when you move from unison to two-parts. HOOOLOHHKOHOCOAHOHOOHOL OO OE eae GAeaene naannananeanreaner =VV VeworwrrwwwwwwwwwewuuwruWwUUUUUWuUUUUUUUUUUE In my experience, I have had success teaching sight reading in the sequence listed below. Both rhythm and pitch should be taught separately daily until they are combined. Remember, often the pitch will move slower than the rhythm. You could be on Step I-A for pitch having moved to Step 3-B for rhythm. Eventually, the pitch will catch up to the rhythm if you teach with patience and are sequential, Step I-A. Finding the singing voice and matching pitch B. Finding macro beat (the macro beat is the heartbeat of all music) Step 2-A. Echoing pitch patterns B. Echoing chythm patterns Step 3-A. Reading pitch patterns B. Reading rhythm patterns Step 4. Reading combined pitch and rhythm patterns in unison ‘Step 5. Reading combined pitch and rhythm patters in wo parts 9 Effective Sight Reading Teachers Vary Their Routine © Daily sight reading can become boring and repetitive even for the most creative and engaging teachers. Vary your teaching method by having upside-down day: read all rhythms with the paper tured upside down, Students will learn that the direction of the note stem does not affect the value of the notes. When reading pitch or pitch and rhythm combined, stand up or sit down on a certain note value (which you or your students can determine), Having fun while sight reading is valuable for you and your students, Be sure you participate and laugh along with them at the mistakes you all will make. When your students see you ‘make and accept your own mistakes, they will learn to accept their own as well. I Effective Sight Reading Teachers Use Appropriate Resources © Finding appropriate resources for beginning choirs can be challenging but it is essential for success. The reproducible pages in this book will give you a great beginning. The following resources can also be used to extend your students’ learning opportunities and growth, Thave used all of these resources and highly recommend them, ‘Making Sight Reading Fun! by Mary Jane Phillips. Hal Leonard (HL00153841) ‘Music Literacy for Singers by Patti De Witt. www.pattidewitt.com (MLSOOL1) Sight Singing for SSA by Emily Crocker. Hal Leonard (HLA7819105) SOS -Simplifying Our Sight Reading by Laura Farell and Mary Jane Phillips. BriLee (BLB00%) SOS - Simplifying Our Sight Reading Flashcards by Laura Farnell and Mary Jane Phillips. BriLee: Treble Clef (BLBO10) and Bass Clef (BLBOL1) ‘SOS Rhythm Reader by Laura Farell and Mary Jane Phillips. BriLee (BL836) Vocal Connections by Ruth Whitlock. Southern Music (HL03770928) eLpors10 How To Teach Sight Reading Sequentially Step {-A. matching Pitches 1. Howto help your stucents find the difference between their singing voice and speaking voice Have students place a hand on their chest and ask them to speak a familiar phrase. My name is ...” works well ‘They should feel a “buzzing” which is their chest voice. Explain that the chest voice is where speaking and lower pitches oceur. ‘Students then echo your yawn sighs and sirens in your upper register. ‘Students should place a hand on their chest when accessing their upper register. ‘When in falsetto (boys) or head voice (girls), they should not feel buzzing in their chest. 8. Daily reminder: if they feel buzzing in the hand on their chest, they ARE NOT in their upper register. 9. Many beginners will fee! the upper register before they hear it 10.Students who have a very difficult time finding their singing voices may need individual tutorials before they find success. Providing one-on-one tutorials for students who continue to struggle with pitch matching: 1. Ask the student to speak while you find the students’ speaking pitch. 2. Ask the student to sustain the pitch. Sing and play the same pitch the student sustains 4, Be very encouraging to those who are still finding their singing voices. Encourage these student to “listen louder than they sing” whenever they sing ‘After students can consistently access their singing voice, you can then work on pitch matching. Most singers in beginning choirs will have five to six reproducible pitches in common. Practice sustaining one pitch until everyone is matching, Teach this step daily and encourage audiation while singing, | TOMO COOAS ee © OOM OOOOEVUE ewew uw uUUUTUUUUUUUUUUUUUUWUUUUMUUWUUUE ‘B08 Step 1-B. Keeping a Steady Macro Beat Finding and maintaining the macro beat must happen before any acurate reproduction of shythm paters can occu 1. Students tap a steady beat on their leg as you shap or clap it. A metronome can also prove helpful when implementing this step. 2. Students can also tap, clap, snap, stomp or dance to a recording, Moving to a familiar pop song with a strong macro beat can help students find the beat while having fun. NOTE: Beginners usually master this step quickly. You will probably move on from Step 1-B before you are finished with Step 1-A, because rhythm moves fast than pitch. TEACH THIS STEP DAILY. Step 2.-A. Echoing Pitch Patterns Using the five to six pitches your students have in common, echo sing pitch patterns, 1. Sing the tonic triad on a neutral syllable (ex: “bum bum bum”) 2. Using the pitch exercises beginning on p. 15, have the students echo you to build audiation skills but do not let the students see the exercises yet. fully reproducing pitches on neutral syllables, add solfege syllables Once students are suc and Curwen hand signs. 1, Areproducible Curwen hand sign chart is located on p. 48. 2. Be sure to teach all students the essential skill of moving hand signs up and down (incorporating spatial distance) in the direction of the pitches. 3. Once students experience success using syllables with the tonic triad, add stepwise movement and eventually, more difficult intervals. 4, Always begin each new pattern on a neutral syllable before proceeding to solfege and hand sings: 5. Teach this step daily. Exercises in this book are written in the keys of F major and G major. You may find that these keys do not always work well for your beginners. Feel free to move the tonic triad to a more comfortable key if it works better for your students, For example: 1, Beginning treble choirs are often more comfortable in the key of E or Eb major. 2. Beginning boys" choir will probably be comfortable in the key of A or Bb major, depending on the age of the choir. 3. With beginning tenor-bass choirs, once we “find” their key, I have found them to be more successful when we always use that key when sight reading. Knowing that the tonic is “always in the same place” often helps boys with changing voices “feel” the placement of pitches as they fear to hear and sing them. This often times proves true for treble choirs. ulStep 2-B. cchoing Rhythm Patterns Once students can keep a steady macro beat, they are ready to echo rhythm patterns. 1. Using the rhythm exercises beginning on p. 14 as your guide, tap, clap, snap and stomp simple éne measure rhythms and have the students copy you 2. Be sure to inelude both notes and rests as this reinforces that music is both sound and silence. 3, Once students gain success echoing you, allow individual students to lead the activity Remind them to produce only one measure of rhythm or you might get MANY eighth notes in a row, 4, Remember, you will probably be able to move from Step 2-B before you are finished with Step 2-A, because rhythm almost always moves faster than pitch. 5. Teach this step daily. Step 3-A. reading Unison Pitches Once students are successfully echoing pitch patters, they are ready to begin reading them. Do not include any rhythms in this step. Beginning on p. 15, each whole note serves as a place holder for the pitch and receives one beat. My method for introducing pitch reading is Es follows 1, The teacher sings the fist exercise on p. 15 and the students echo sing (they are not looking at notation) while using solfege and hand signs. 2, Introduce reading the notation by having every student track each note with their Finger as the teacher sings the exercise. 3, Ask a probative question and/or point out that when the pitch goes up, the notes go up om the staff. 4, Students then sing the exercise on solfege while tracking the notes with their finger. 5. Once students are successful with finger tracking, begin introducing hand signs. 6. Finger tracking should slowly be fazed out as reading with hand sings is mastered. 7. Be sure to use a SLOW reading tempo. 8. Teach this skill daily ‘A Curwen hand sign chart is located on p. 48. I hang a poster of the Curwen hand sign at the front of my room. Students find it very helpful to be able to refer to this visual hand sign reminder whenever they need to. ocaeel AAAAAAAATHAAGAAHEOOHEOHOHKE VVIIVG DVIVVVIVIWVI =TUE w wr ewe yy UNUM wUUUUUUUVUE Leos Step 3-B. Rea g Unison Rhythms Students are ready to begin reading rhythmic notation once they can keep a steady macro beat ‘and echo simply rhythm patterns. Use a slow tempo: Quarter note = 60 is optimal. 1. ‘Teach students to chant rhythms in a legato style as chanting in a staccato style will result in the tempo rushing. Beginners will try to fill in the empty spaces (caused by the choppiness) with sound. 2. teach my students to keep a silent macro beat tap on their leg using their fist as they chant rhythm, Using a fist is quieter then an open hand, With beginners, I either use a metronome or snap the macro beat as this also helps prevent rushing. 4, As students become more proficient, I no longer provide an audible macro beat. This teaches student to internalize the pulse “Teachers must also be sensitive to how often students breathe. Beginners tend to breathe after every note longer than a quarter note. Even if they breathe in rhythm and keep the tempo steady, they are not actually giving the note its’ proper value. Reading four-measure phrases before taking a breath is common practice for most experienced musicians, but I believe itis too much for most beginners. Insist on two-measure phrases between breaths. When the skill is mastered, then itis appropriate to begin working towards longer phrases. Teach this skill daily, 13