4 Ways to Help Students Who Struggle with Reading Music

Do any of these scenarios sound familiar to you?

• You start a new student who is excited to show you the complicated pieces they have learned to play from watching YouTube tutorial videos. However, your student seems to lose interest in practicing when note reading is introduced, and lessons quickly become frustrating for both of you.​
• Your student continually watches their hands and guesses at notes instead of looking at the sheet music and reading what is on the page.
• Your student has a fabulous ear, but dislikes practicing with sheet music and finds sight-reading to be extremely slow and difficult.

For some students, learning to read music can be a real struggle–and it can be difficult to know how to help students like these without dampening their enthusiasm for the piano. So today, I am sharing my top tips for helping students just like these!

​Keep reading to learn more….

First, let me preface this article by saying that there are many fabulous pianists who don’t read music. Does one need to read music to be an excellent musician? No--of course not!

However, I feel that it is important that all of my students learn how to read music because it can make life as a musician much easier. It helps students to develop a deeper understanding of music theory and allows them to play a piece of music “on the fly” without hearing it first.

For students who want to play classical music in particular, the ability to read sheet music can help them to eventually learn pieces much more quickly and accurately than they could otherwise.

For these reasons, I explain to my students that learning to read music is an important part of being a well-rounded musician. I do my best to help them understand why reading music is a valuable skill, even if it doesn’t come easily to them.

Once students understand why learning to read music is important, and they are on board with making it a regular part of their practice routine, the work can begin! 

Here are my top 4 tips for helping students who struggle with reading:


1. Determine why a student might be struggling with reading.
There could be underlying issues that need to be addressed that will help make the process of learning to read much easier for your student. For example:

• Does your student have vision issues that make it difficult to see the music?
• Does your student have learning differences (such as dyslexia) that make learning to read music more difficult?
• Does your student have such a good ear that they often "cheat" by relying on their ear instead of reading the notes?
• Is your student frustrated with reading because the pieces sound simpler than what they can play when learning by rote?

Understanding why a student might be struggling can help you to tailor your approach so that you can give them the best support possible as they work on their reading skills.
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2. Work on note reading not just in isolation, but also in context with other notes on the page.
Often students can be very proficient at naming individual notes on the staff but still struggle with reading a complete piece. This is because the ability to read music quickly relies on learning to spot musical patterns and understanding how notes relate to one another on the page.

For example, when a young child first learns to read written language, they are taught the individual letters of the alphabet, then how to sound out words by reading each individual letter. However, children then quickly progress to learning "sight words" so that they can read an entire word, like "cat" or "dog," without having to sound out each individual letter.

Learning to read music is much the same! Our students should be able to both name individual notes quickly, as well as to identify short musical patterns like pentascales, melodic and harmonic intervals, and blocked and broken chords in order to read music quickly and efficiently. 

A few of my favorite ways to help students learn to read music in context are:

• Drill both individual note names and melodic and harmonic intervals.
• Color code patterns in the music so students can spot them at a glance.
• Relate patterns in the music to technical patterns the student knows how to play, such as scales and chords. A former teacher of mine calls these patterns "vocabulary for the hands," which I think is a perfect term for this concept!

3. Get creative when working on reading skills--and make it fun!

• There are a variety of fun apps that help students to drill note names and even sight-read short pieces with scrolling scores and backing tracks. The apps Note Rush, Flashnote Derby, and Piano Maestro have all been popular with my students. (Have a favorite app or note reading game to recommend? Let us know in the comments!)
• Composition can be a great way to help students develop their musical fluency! Help students create their own pieces, notate them on the staff, then play them from the sheet music.
• Students who enjoy playing by ear can transcribe portions of the pieces they have learned onto the staff. Writing skills help to reinforce reading skills!
• Students who enjoy the fuller sound of playing more complicated pieces might find playing along with backing tracks or duet parts to be more musically satisfying than playing solo pieces when working on note reading.

4. Continue supplementing your lessons with non-reading activities.
While it can be tempting to focus solely on reading at every lesson with students who are struggling, don’t forget that working on rote pieces, learning from video tutorials, and playing by ear can all help build technique and musicianship, too!

Even better, these activities can help keep students motivated while they continue to develop their reading skills.

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What do you think? How important is note reading in your studio, and how do you help students who are struggling with reading? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!