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Did you mention already how long your daughter has been with this particular teacher?

She started at the end of February.

Earlier, I just let her sightread a quite easy piece (from Hal Leonards Piano Solos 2 by the way, "Leaps and bounds") and noticed her getting a little bit confused at some parts by playing treble D not with the second finger... well, how great ist that?
At least she was able to fix it by her own, but it shows me again, something is going wrong with her learning process.
And yes, I do blame her teacher for this. Who else?

Just kidding, but I definitely will have to have a conversation with her (...just hoping, it doesn`t end up in chitchat again...)

I'm not sure what's wrong with her playing treble D with a different finger other than the second one...

There is nothing wrong with it at all. The problem is, she got confused by it and at some parts automatically played E instead of D. There seems to be a connection between D and second finger in her head.
(Sry, my german is much better than my english)

Maybe some kids are stuck in middle C position?

That`s exactly what I am concerned about.
The whole first book ist written in middle C position. It took her only a good month, to get through it, but the second book also works a lot with this position, escpecially the right hand (the left is successively expanding down to c major).

But the last pieces she`ve learned, are written in d minor (with thumb on d) and f major (thumb on f) and she had not much of a problem with that. So this sudden confusion of hers comes a little bit out of surprise.
Maybe I am over-interpreting her mistakes but I am not very happy with this.

Your daughter has been taking since the end of February. I would suggest that you have a little patience, give this teacher a chance to teach. Really, learning is a slow process so start thinking SLOW. Your daughter is seven and has been taking lessons for only three months. Why are you doing research on pedagogy after such a short interval and questioning how she is taught? Give it time.

Of course she is confused by sight-reading!!!! She is just learning how to read and should not be able to ‘sight read’.
Please don’t go down the same path you did. Learning Chopin’s prelude 28 15 in year two is way earlier than you can have the skills to play it well. Let her be a snail so she will continue and love playing. Stay away from the home teaching unless their are questions from what was covered in her lesson. Let it be.

i should stay out of this, I know but I loved lessons and playing as a child. Her feeling the same way is much more important than how fast she gets ‘there’.

Thank you for being so upfront.
Probably that is just what I needed right now.
I may was about to rush things...against my primal intention, not doing so.





You're absolutely right! I should remember that more often.

Amen!

Let me add something:



Like I already admitted, patience is not one of my strenghts...and I had no idea, how challenging it can be (for a child) to understand a musical notation and transform it into playing ...I always thought of these things as being very intuitive. So propably I`ve wronged her and expected way too much (by this early state of learning).
You say "only three months", while I was thinking "already three months and she still muddels up". Deep sigh.

Just to be clear, I never get truly mad (in front of her), I think, she is a great little person...a little slow though, but cute as a button. I just want her to be happy.

Honestly, this one o fthe reasons why I decided not to teach her alone. I would probably screw it up.

I tutored my daughter in the math and sciences and she was a little slow. I think I screwed her up as a result. I now think that any student who isn't within the 1-sigma band for learning should be taught by people who specialize in this - people like malkin - and not by the average parent. Too bad this realization of mine came too late for my kid.

I agree with the spirit of the entire post, but this line stuck out like a sore thumb:

I welcome anybody to spend 10 minutes in my studio and observe my method book students sight reading their new piece. This is not a joke. These kids are in 1st or 2nd grade, and not even close to being the bright kids that I used to teach. Everybody can read and sight read. If the new piece presents a new concept (such as a new landmark note, or a new interval) we work on that first, doing a couple of repetitions. Then the new piece in the method book will be sight read almost effortlessly.

Yesterday my Level 2A beginner forgot her book at home. I grabbed a different method book from my shelf, and made her sight read through it. The only mistakes she made were a couple of 4th and 5th intervals. All the repeats, steps, and skips were played correctly, and all the rhythms (quarter notes, half notes, and whole notes) were played with correct timing. The girl is in 2nd grade and started lessons last November.

When the student's foundation is laid out properly, it makes the teacher's job EXTREMELY easy.

Here is the problem: you as the teacher know what is an equivalent piece the student should be able to handle. A parent doing this ad hoc type of ‘progress testing’ at home does not. That is what is being addressed.

In addition, this student has been taking lessons 3 months. I would not expect she would be in a 2A book.

That’s an interesting consideration.
I persume, your daughter is an adult now? Has she ever confirmed your concerns?


I`m not sure if my daughter is learning at an average, or below pace. It`s rather slow for me, but that does not mean much.

She had been able to take lessons last year, but based on her fine motor skills and the tinyness of her hands, I deciced she was not ready yet.

So she definitely is not a high achiever (so far), but that’s absolutely fine. On the other hand she is very dutiful for a child of her age and extremely affabale. That`s also worth a lot.

And did I already mention, how cute she is? :-)

Well that depends on which decade one is in. From the perspective of the decades when I grew up, she would have been considered an adult already for a long time. From the perspective of today, I still pay for her apartment, so I'd have to say "no."


Yes.

Oh, I`m sorry.
But if it comforts you: one must always be the scapegoat

Actually, I think I can judge the difficulty level of her current plays.

We looked at PA Level 1 today and she played a few pieces for me (Mixud up song, Runaway Rabbit, Kites in the Sky). I wanted to find out how well she recognizes 4ths and surprisingly she did pretty well. "A mixed up song" she almost played perfectly (…and of course I am judging the rhythm, dynamics, correct legato and staccato as well as hitting the right notes).


I will suggest to the teacher to switch to this method.


I like the thoroughness of these books. The pieces are technically simpler, but more emphasis is placed on musical development, which I clearly prefer.

I thought the same thing.
To be exact, my daugther tries to sight read every piece you put in front of her by her own. So I don`t consider this practice to be overcharging, as long as the difficulty level fits her capabilities.
In the contrary, I think this is even fun and should be the goal of everything: achieving the ability to play every piece you like without any external guidance needed.




So you are paid by the parents for almost nothing?!
Pretty clever!

My biggest battles are with the clueless parents who are completely "hands off" at home. If they don't remember to do anything I tell them to do, then how do they expect their children to do what I tell them to do?

And even with these clueless parents, some of the kids turn out okay.

That may be true, but the OP does sound like she can play piano and can discern the music's difficulty.


That does sound like the kid is being pushed ahead too quickly. Slowing down might be a good idea, just to get the basics covered in a more thorough fashion.

But progress is very hard to gauge and standardize. I used to be able to get kids to sonatinas by the end of year two. Now my most advanced students get there after three insufferably slow years. At one point I thought kids are just getting dumber and dumber.