Sight-reading is a skill that every musician can always improve upon, but creating daily opportunities to practice this skill can require a lot of preparation and materials. Enter: Sight Reading Builder.
With Sight Reading Builder, available to MakeMusic Cloud subscribers, it is easy to generate infinite exercises within parameters that you can specify or select from our preset levels. Once you have set parameters that you like, you can generate a brand new exercise to read with one click, and do so as many times as you’d like to!
A valuable music classroom tool
Sight Reading Builder makes sight-reading practice during class time a breeze. With a little preparation and a few repetitions, your students will be ready to sight-read on the daily. Here’s our best practice tips:
1. Ensure your computer can connect to the projector and be seen by students (even in the back of the room!)
2. Preset your ensembles in Sight Reading Builder based on the instrumentation in your classes during your prep time (you’ll only have to do it once!). Consider using smaller instrument groups for large classes (separate out instrument groups to better fit on the screen).
3. Create appropriate sight-reading scores for each class by following along with the wizard in Sight Reading Builder. Remember that you can customize the tempo, duration of exercise, and the level. If you prefer to further customize beyond the level, there are many additional options available!
4. Once all parameters are as you like them, select File and save your sight-reading score with a name that makes sense to you (perhaps the class name and date range you plan to use this outline).
5. Once you have selected Save, your customized Sight Reading Builder exercise will be saved and accessible in your Content Manager and in My Library under My Created Content.
Sight Reading Builder exercises visible in the Content Manager.
Sight Reading Builder exercises visible in My Library under My Created Content.
When it’s time to sight-read in class, establish a routine that works well for you and your students that you can consistently work through. Consider using a student leader to click the generate button between exercises so that you can be walking around the room supporting your students. Keep all students engaged by encouraging a group who is not currently reading the exercise to act as sleuths to look for who has the best posture, hand position, engagement, foot tap, or anything else you are focusing on with students. Allow time for them to compliment their peers in between reps to build community. Finally, celebrate small victories with your students and encourage them to continue to put forth their best efforts daily to get better and better!
Power sight-reading up with available assessment
Sight Reading Builder includes our powerful assessment algorithm if you choose to use it. You can easily gamify the classroom experience by keeping assessment on during class time (and potentially encouraging a little bit of fun competition).
The uses for Sight Reading Builder stretch far beyond classroom walls—the powerful assessment feature makes it easy for individuals to practice on their own. Even if you do not assign a sight-reading score as an assignment, anyone can open a share link, play through your customized score (generate infinite versions of it), and receive instant feedback! You can find a share link to a sight-reading score you have created by selecting it in My Content and then selecting the Share button to view sharing options.
Commit to a daily sight-reading practice
Commit to spending a few minutes daily on sight-reading and you’ll see fantastic results! Get your students involved and mark off your class sight-reading streak on a classroom calendar. Enjoy the pride and confidence boost you’ll see in your students (and they’ll improve musically, too!) Allow MakeMusic Cloud and Sight Reading Builder support you in your efforts to support your students!
Ready to get started?
Test drive Sight Reading Builder today with a free trial!