Reading Readiness with Notation Activities: These activities take place in class and sometimes serve as an activity so that the teacher can work with lesson partners individually up at the piano. Throughout the year, your child will learn and review these concepts for Reading Readiness with Music Notation:

• Note Parts: students learn about note parts, stems, beams, flags and dots through playful games and colorful worksheets. Students spend time investigating their music to discover these parts written in notation.

• Reading rhythm syllables: Students begin to group eighth notes and become familiar with duple and triple patterns.

• Students see their Song to Sing in each unit laid out and notice familiar patterns within those. 

• Students will begin to notice intervals in their music, including stepwise motion and leaps. 

• Students will learn to spot four macrobeat Rhythm Patterns in their music, noticing “same” and “different” ones within the page. 

• Students will look for  same-sounding patterns that look different (enrhythmic notation). 

• Students learn to read roman numeral chord roots.

• Students will begin to notice dynamic markings and articulation including staccato and legato in music by noticing dots and rainbows.

• Students in Book 3 receive the Reading and Writing Book 1 and begin the process of reading notation with meaning.