ChoralEd: Sight-Reading Suggestions

Developing sight-reading skills can be a difficult task for many teachers. ChoralEd episode 20 shares some general suggestions for enhancing your sight-reading pedagogy.

Teachers frequently develop sight-reading skills during a dedicated sight-reading time. However, it is highly beneficial to incorporate music literacy skills throughout the entire class.  Elements of solfège (or your preferred system) should be developed during the vocal warm-up. In addition, the rehearsal of concert repertoire should utilize sight-reading techniques, as opposed to being introduced by rote. When sight-reading concert repertoire, many teachers require students to write their solfège in the score.  Although this approach is controversial among choral directors, if you elect to incorporate this method it is best to have students write the solfège directly in front of the notehead (as opposed to above or below the staff), and only write the solfège that is needed.

During the dedicated sight-reading time, teachers often exhibit several bad habits that inhibit the learning process.  Choral directors should avoid singing with their students, pointing at the solfège (if projected/notated on the board), and showing the solfège hand signs.  By doing these things students become reliant on the teacher for support.  Pointing and showing the Curwen hand signs articulates the rhythm, while singing provides immediate auditory correction.  In addition, following a mistake in sight-reading, choral directors inhibit learning by immediately providing students with the answer by singing or playing the correct pitch/interval, as opposed to requiring students to work through and correct the error themselves.

Finally, the dedicated sight-reading time can, at times, be met with disinterest from students.  To overcome this, teachers can utilize positive self-talk which encourages positive, rather than negative, feelings towards sight-reading.  In this approach, students repeat the phrases, “I love to sight-read” and “I’m great at sight-reading.” If sight-reading is met with hostility, the teacher may also want to include a positive self-talk phrase that lightens the mood.  For example, “Sight-reading is better than video games,” or “Sight-reading is better than ice cream.”  When faced with student disinterest, teachers should avoid saying things like, “Let’s just get through this so we can get to our concert music” or “If we sight-read, we can have five minutes of free time at the end of class.”  While phrases such as these are intended to encourage students, they instead negatively infer sight-reading to be a boring chore that must be completed.

To watch ChoralEd, Episode 20 on YouTube click HERE

To listen to ChoralEd, Episode 20 on Apple Podcasts click HERE.