Finding the Note at the End of the Rainbow: Sight Reading Practice for St. Patrick’s Day
Today I want to share one of my favorite resources from the Irish Piano Pack. I designed the Rainbow Flashcards as an alternative to traditional flashcards. The most important thing in sight reading is not NAMING the note, it is playing it at the right time. The Rainbow Flashcards are an excellent way to train super sight readers! Here’s how they work:
Each rainbow has two notes on it – a lower note on the left and a higher note on the right. Students play and name the first note, then float the wrist up toward the second note. The goal is to land DIRECTLY on the second note without “fishing around” for the correct note. This trains the student to not only find the correct note more quickly, but to aim and land on the note on the first try, all while using a nice flexible floating wrist.
There are so many variations you could do with this activity. You can play the notes right to left. You can repeat each card several times with the metronome on. You can line several cards up in a row on the piano and play them with a steady beat along with the metronome.
I love this resource because I think it is SO important to train super sight readers. Teaching our students how to sight read well will boost their confidence and open up so many doors to them. The ability to sit down and play anything will increase their confidence and their love of music, and their ability to make music throughout their life.
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