One of the great things about SightReadingFactory.com is its versatility in that it can be used by musicians of all ages and abilities. The applications for middle school, high school and even college students are apparent with the availability of sight reading for a wide selection of solo instruments, voice types and even ensembles. Now with the recent addition of our Customization feature and rhythm-only sight reading, Sight Reading Factory® has many great uses for elementary music teachers in helping develop music reading fundamentals through sight reading. Practicing sight reading with students at the elementary school level will better prepare those students for music programs at the secondary level. Additionally, secondary school music programs will benefit from students with a solid sight reading foundation coming from their elementary feeder schools.
Sight reading exercises can be fully customized to correlate with the first notes and rhythms that students learn. And as they learn more notes, rhythms and musical concepts, those can be incorporated into the exercises so that the sight reading always progresses with their level of knowledge. Below are some various ways that SRF can be integrated into elementary music curriculums.
Rhythm-only sight reading
With rhythm-only exercises you can start sight reading as soon as your elementary students learn their first rhythms. You can have sight reading exercises projected to the front of the class when the students walk in and can immediately have the students sight reading rhythms based on your preferred counting system.
Recorder sight reading exercises
Many elementary school music programs include recorder instruction in their curriculum. With our sight reading exercises for recorder, even if your students only know B, A, G, and a few simple rhythms, you can customize it so that only those notes and rhythms are incorporated. You can even customize and set up the exercises so that they supplement and correlate with any method book.
Sight singing 101
Using the customization feature as a way to simplify the music for students that are just learning to sight sing, you can limit the range, rhythms, and leaps to something very manageable by elementary students. You can even display the solfege for the notes using your preferred solfege system.
Update August 2016: Now you can create four-measure pieces, great for younger students!
Is there something that you would like to see that you can use with your elementary students? Let us know!
Don Crafton
Founder
SightReadingFactory.com