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I agree with this. Singing pentatonic songs (with solfa syllables Do, Re, Mi, So, La) avoids the half steps of Fa (half-step higher than Mi) and Ti (half-step lower than Do).

After much practice singing pentatonic syllables, then Fa and Ti can be introduced with more success. It gives the student ample opportunity to sing major seconds and other wider intervals first, which are easier to get in tune than minor seconds.

The first thing I ever did was solfa, and it was my main reference. Years later in an exercise in a group, there was solfege again, which I checked with the piano, and thought my pitch was "off" because my "Ti" was always too high, and my "Mi Fa" was always too close. I discovered that I had come into one particular type of tuning, and that tuning contains the feel for leading notes, and the feel for underlying chords. This had carried me in my sense of music for decades subconsciously. There are methodologies that also teach the "flavours" along with solfege singing. If you leave out Fa and Ti, you destroy that. If you leave them out, then you are merely teaching whole tone intervals, which are rather meaningless, with no association to anything. There are different angles to music, different worlds. Mi Fa and Ti Do are not "chromaticism".

I'm not suggesting leaving them out, just introducing them later.



Careful with your use of the word "destroy." That's a strong word.



Mary Had a Little Lamb is a meaningless tune because it only has Do, Re, Mi, So?

That's a rhetorical question. No need to answer, and I probably wouldn't see an answer, anyway, as my husband is having surgery soon, and I'll be away from the forum for a good while again.

Yes, the student can tell higher/lower. Right now she can tell far (6th, 7th, 8th) vs. near (2nd, 3rd, 4th).

We are working on half steps and whole steps.

And, no, we are not going to sing a chromatic scale. In fact, getting this girl to match pitch is an adventure.

Alright! Now we're talking.

For matching pitches, if you have not already tried, one strategy is to have the person cup their ears, that way they can hear themselves better. Also I've found what Tim said about timbre to be true in my experience, I once had a friend who sang completely out of tune, as in wrong pitches, and was practicing matching pitch. I was one of the friends there and she said she had an easier time matching pitch to my voice! lol.

Alluded to here~
https://ramseyvoice.com/ear-training/

Some other ideas to try~
https://www.musical-u.com/learn/11-tips-to-help-the-tone-deaf-sing-in-tune/