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I see no reason to stress about finger numbers.

Dyslexia is a deeper learning issue than many understand. Depending upon the student, you could have the best games and cutsies and the student still not learn the finger numbers. Instead of forcing the student into a method, find how they learn and modify your technique to their learning style. You have to communicate in their language.

Have you thought of using finger names instead of numbers? pinky, pointer etc, or whatever you and he want to devise.

I see no reason to stress about finger numbers.

Dyslexia is a deeper learning issue than many understand. Depending upon the student, you could have the best games and cutsies and the student still not learn the finger numbers. Instead of forcing the student into a method, find how they learn and modify your technique to their learning style. You have to communicate in their language.

i have always wanted to work with a dyslexic.. to figure out how to teach him/ or her. Keep posting as you experiment. i think my own brother is somewhat dyslexic.. hard to tell because he has other learning disabilities. He learned by being shown how to play. reading music was beyond him.

I wonder what would happen if you actually isolated the idea of 'symmetry' and taught it to the student as a concept. I feel like putting a name/label on the problem for the student might bridge a connection and he might actually associate with the idea mores strongly.

It's deep, yes, but the real danger is assuming that because people have this "disabiity" they will not play well. For each person it is different.

I have had students who could not process finger numbers UNTIL they had already mastered fingering to a great extent. We do not need to use finger numbers to teach the concept of what is comfortable, and chords are very good for shaping the hands. For chords fingering can be shown, non-verbally. While getting a sensible hand position for the LH chords, you can allow the RH to use any fingering in the universe, which I call "Martian" fingering.

My beginners will often read rather well, with quite primative fingering, but as they become more confident they will often "invent" fingering that is absolutely brilliant. I see unusual crosses, finger substitutions, course correction on the fly.

If they learn to use their hands in a logical way first, it is usually not a big deal introducing the idea of "guide" fingers, a single finger number at the beginning of a phrase. If, for instance, there is a five-finger position starting on any key and ascending and the number 1 is there, it is not unusual to see such students start on 5, the pinky. But they discover that it is awkward, and usually if they grasp the pattern, they self-correct to the thumb because it is logical.

Flipping the notes themselves is a much larger problem, for instance reading bottom line E as top line F, in the treble, but usually that works its way out too.

Now, if the problem is REALLY severe, more severe than I have ever encountered, I don't know how that would go. But usually it seems to me that the "problem" is serious only when we do not use creative solutions to find "other ways in".

thanks Chris.. i hope i haven't stepped on anyone's toes. It's difficult to say what one wants to say without infringing or opposing.

Being Dyslexic and playing the piano is really, really difficult. Not to mention that playing the piano is one of the most difficult musical endeavours a human can do, it is far more for a Dyslexic. In fact, even that I do play the piano, I would not recommend a piano as a first choice instrument to a Dyslexic child/adult, unless they really really want to play it.
They would get far more mileage out of playing a single-line instrument.

That said, how would I go about teaching a D. child?
Answer = No reading music, no finger numbers, no pages to look at. But: teach by ear, let them work it out, aid them in finding there own way, let them play music . . . in other words; nearly everything that one would do with a "normal" child does not with a D. child. The Suzuki method is a way to go.

According to a psychologist I once heard (and he is dyslexic), dyslexia is always accompanied by ADD. That knowledge might help you in pacing the lesson.

According to a psychologist I once heard (and he is dyslexic), dyslexia is always accompanied by ADD. That knowledge might help you in pacing the lesson.