Jeanette, with all respect, why are you dividing "sightreading" and "learning" and keeping them separate?  Teach them to read, and then expect them to do so!

 

In a decent school district your 7th and 8th graders would have learned to read music in elementary school, but unfortunately most school districts do not have the kind of music literacy expectations that Zoltan Kodály pioneered.  Which means that it's up to you to provide what they've missed.  Teach them solfege; then use it in your rehearsals.  And if you dont' have Kodály training, take some summer workshops and get some.

 

Inability to read music is not a student's failure, it is a teacher's failure.  Or rather a whole series of teachers' failures.  And it is a crying shame!

 

John

John, I am guilty of that too.....how do you do solfege, which I already do with seperate sighsinging books, with choral 3 part mixed repertoire that has all kinds of skips and jumps that aren't easy to sing in solfege?  That coupled with tricky rhythm patterns and the kids easily get frustrated.  Many of my kids are singing for the first time since 3rd grade, it's important that I turn them on not off to singing, and that they are not only singing well, but enjoying what they are doing.  I too teach 7th and 8th grade mixed chorus.  Any and all suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!!

Jeanette, I was in the same boat a few years ago.  The only MS students with any reading ability coming from our two feeder elementary school were private piano or strings students.  In 6th grade, they take a rotation of 6 weeks Band, 6 weeks Choir, 6 weeks Art, so you can imagine how effective that is.  But I digress.

 

What I did with MS was to spend the whole first two weeks with intense solfege and rhythm games.  We had Solfege Scales and Pitch Ladder contests with goofy little prizes for the fastest student or the best section.  They sang canons using solfege. I also wrote out the solfege for commercials and a couple TV shows and made them memorize them.  The students knew that they would be tested and graded on their mastery, so the incentives were strong.

 

When it was time to break out the choral literature, I wrote solfege and rhythm exercises for each song, in the proper key, highlighting certain complex rhythms or concepts such as repeats, crescendi, ritardando, etc.  Earlene Rentz did this for her arrangement of "In Paradisum" by Faure, and it is a cool tool.  The kids immediately get that this is prep work for the song.  In fact, my returning HS students expect this, so I ask my section leaders to create "prep-solfege) for new literature.  They hold our Sweepstakes plaques up for incentive.

 

Make it fun, make it brief, make it relevant to the songs they're learning. 

Best wishes on turning this around for your kids!

Suzanne

Oh, forgot to add that we do a solfege warm-up exercise at the beginning of every class (daily grade as I check attendance), and I constantly ask them to look for unisons and patterns in their choral literature.  Keep them tuned in!

 

Best wishes,

Suzanne

I really like John Howell's dictum:  "Teach them solfege; then use it in your rehearsals."  That's your mission.

If it's at all possible, try to work in small groups. Kids who can't sightread get very adept at following a split second behind kids who can sightread. This is true with adults, too! Whatever method you use, work with kids alone or in small groups making each student sightread alone short bits with gentle correction. I also follow the incorporating solfege into warm-ups. 

 

And thank you for taking the time to teach this life-long skill.

 

Good luck!

Julia

 

Jeanette-- An essential question, no matter what level you are at.  I am constantly challenging myself to spend more time sightreading in rehearsals, and it has never failed me yet.  Last year, I pushed my advanced group to 50% of rehearsal being sightreading (HS singers-- we pulled a different Bach chorale every day and read it cold for the first half of class), and they still learned the concert material faster than the year previous.  With that in mind, please forgive my zeal and theory-nerd excitement for sight reading.

 

Here are, in no particular order, some strategies that I've used with John's message of "break it down" in mind:

1)  Identify basic and recurring rhythms in your literature and write them large on some construction paper.  Have them sing a scale on solfege in whatever rhythm you are holding up in front of them.  For example, if you have three rhythms picked out (let's use Q Q EE Q, EEEEQ Q , H   Q Q), and you switched them while the students were going up and down the scale, you might end up with something like this:

D D DD D, R R RR R, M   M M, FFFF F F, etc...

2)  From Gary Weidenaar at Central Washington - Sing a scale and have them drop certain notes out and sing them silently to themselves.  For example: 1) DRMFSLTD -> 2) DRM(rest)SLTD -> 3) DRM(rest)SL(rest)D -> etc.  Make it a game-- how many can they leave out and stay in tune and rhythm?  Great for making them think intervals and audiate the solfege, which is key to reading.

3)  Once they are solid with the hand signs, break the group into 2/3/whatever parts.  Put one student in front of each group.  Have all groups start in unison "Doh."  Have all of the students in front of their respective groups take turns changing the pitch by moving the hand sign.  Cool stuff happens out of this one-- great way to teach consonance/dissonance, stepwise/intervallic motion, tension/resolution, melodic shape, etc...  Gets every kid in front of the choir at some point.

 

(#1 is rhythm, #2 is melody, #3 is harmony.  Music is more than just singing melody!)

 

Once they are absolutely rocking on solfege, take it to the literature:  "Altos, we are going to sing at letter D.  Sopranos, once the Altos are done, you are going to sing it on solfege.  Would you please count the intervals on the page while we're singing so that you know what they all are?  Check silently with your neighbor using hand signs when you have it.  Your first pitch is a So."

 

Two great resources for you-- First, look at www.masterworkspress.com .  Tons of great materials for sight-singing for elementary, middle and high school levels.  All are sequential/scaled so it's easy to progress, and they are all reproducible.  Great stuff here.

 

Second, "Building Choral Excellence: Teaching Sight-Singing" by Stephen Demorest.  While the whole thing is useful, here was one of the most important points out of it for me, if I can paraphrase:  your particular method (numbers, solfege, do-based minor, la-based minor, etc) is far less important than daily repetition and individual assessment.  Just do it every day, have them do it individually for you somehow, and they'll build the understanding.

 

A final thought-- the musical process has in essence three stages - Input (Ear training, SIght Reading), Processing (Theory/Analysis/"Intentional Music Making"), and Output (Performance).  Sight reading is a very important part of the process, but to really make it a complete musical process, a musician has to engage all the steps.  Once your musicians are comfortable with solfege, why not have them write the sight-singing exercises?  Rotate them through, with a couple of students responsible for that day's sight-reading.  Have them start with a doh-based clef, no key signature, major only, quarter notes only, whatever works for you.  You can use this, then, as the way to introduce all of the music reading things that they need to know to be successful musicians.  Now you have a hook for improvisation, composition, whatever else is in the state standards that you work within. 

 

As scary as it is to give up that "Concert Rehearsal Time"-- Whatever makes them better musicians makes your job easier.  Better reading leads to better understanding, better self-esteem/engagement, faster rehearsal, etc.  Don't fear the doh!

 

All the best,

Jeff