I like to include sight-reading activities in my students’ piano lessons from the moment they begin reading notes on the staff. Doing so gives my students the confidence they need to tackle new pieces and to practice independently at home.
But finding age-appropriate sight-reading opportunities for young beginners can be a challenging task. So I usually end up creating the activities on my own. And whenever I create something for my students… I share it on the blog so you can use it with your students too! 🙂
Today’s printable is a sight-reading activity for primer-level piano students that provides a fun way of reinforcing treble clef note reading in C position. Check it out below…
You Can’t Go Wrong With Puppies and Kittens…
Pull out today’s printable and watch your young beginners squeal with delight as they reinforce their treble clef note-reading skills with our Puppy Chase sight-reading activity in C position. Here’s how it works:
- Print off the sight-reading activity (download instructions are below).
- Ask your student to close her eyes.
- Using a pencil crayon, draw a line (a “path”) from the puppy to the kitten. Your line should pass through 4 randomly-chosen circles to form a twisting pathway leading from the puppy to the kitten.
- Ask your student to open her eyes and place her right hand in the C 5-finger position.
- Have your student play the four notes (in the order in which they appear) that rest along the path drawn in Step 3.
- Using a different colored pencil crayon, repeat Steps 2 – 5 with a newly-created pathway to follow to repeat this activity using the same page.
You can use this activity as a way to check-in on your students’ note reading accuracy, as an intro activity at the start of a lesson or as a way of reinforcing certain notes that need attention. Send it home for extra practice during the week too! And if your students love it… let us know, or share it on social media tagging us @teachpianotoday so we can see it in action! We’ll be creating more sight-reading printables for different note sets and concepts in the coming months.
Where To Find Today’s Piano Teaching Printable?
If you are a long time reader of the Teach Piano Today blog then you’ll already know that we share a LOT of piano teaching printables!
…But today’s printable is just a little bit different than what we typically share.
Today’s Primer Level activity is a WunderKeys printable. As many of you know, WunderKeys is our preschool piano program… but in 2017 it’s becoming much more!
The WunderKeys family is growing. By the end of this year, WunderKeys will include Primer and Level 1 method books PLUS free supplementary piano printables that can be used along with each levelled book.
Today’s sight-reading printable for primer-level students is the first of many WunderKeys piano printables that we will be sharing with the Teach Piano Today community.
You can download it by visiting the resource section on the WunderKeys website found here. Simply scroll down to the “Primer” section and click on the image of today’s printable.
Amy says
Looks like something my kids will love, and won’t require tons of explaining for them to understand! I’d love to have one for bass clef notes as I find my students struggle more with left hand sightreading than right hand. Perhaps one with bass C position notes, and one with left hand middle C position notes so to include both common beginner positions!
Andrea says
Hi Amy – we’ll have more of these with a similar style of play but different concepts 🙂 Keep an eye on TPT and on WunderKeys for new resources coming out all the time!
Lisa says
This is great! Thanks! I usually use “Sheldon” and “Maxwell” as sight-reading activities with a lot of students, but this will be a great one to use with those who haven’t started that, yet.
Robin Steinweg says
I sure appreciate your generosity–and your fun learning activities! Thank you so much.
Ellen says
Great idea!! I’m going to laminate it and use dry-erase markers in different colors to draw the pathways.
Roni Rothwell says
great idea Ellen!
Andrea says
Hi Ellen – Yes, mine is laminated! 🙂 I give some kids their own copy for home practice, but yes, it’s a great reusable activity for the students you have at this level and can be played again and again. Glad you can use it!
Barbara says
This is adorable. What a fun way to sight-read! It makes it seem much more like a game. I’m with Ellen, I’ll be laminating also.
Another way this could be used is to let the student draw the lines and the teacher plays while the student makes sure she gets it right — and maybe accidentally on purpose sometimes she doesn’t;)