Ds beging to read....music

[Blandmum]

And I'm utterly gobsmacked.

Ds is fab but struggles with reading and is considerably behind the rest of his class at reading, although he is making some progress.

All the way home today he kept looking at his musoc book, muttering coffee , coffee, tea, tea , tea, soup. He drove me faintly mad, until I clocked what he was doing. He was reading the sheet music!

I was astonished.

I taught myself to read music when I was about 7, and I'd suggest that you should get in there and encourage it before he loses interest! Get him a recorder or something that he can play, let him explore music.

Don't be surprised that he's twigged music before he's twigged reading; music is a lot more logical than the English language is - my old music teacher used to say that it was more like maths than English because it's logical with set rules.

He has a recorder, and is having lessons in school (the whole class do...poor teacher! )

the maths link is interesting, he is much more mathematical than language based, and always has been.

School is very, very pro music and he will have lots of chances as he gets older

Hi mb - call me twp, but can you explain the coffee, tea bit please? Is it like the violin music that my dd used to have with daddy, mummy, bear or whatever instead of real notes? TIA.
P.S. Forgot to say that it's really good that your ds is interested in music. My ds also has spelling problems and he reads music which is encouraging. He started with the piano then went on to brass instruments. He's really quite good now and has been chosen to receive free hire of instruments and free personal tuition.

Coffee =quavers
Tea =crochet
Soup= minim

not come across this myself, but it has worked well with ds and he was 'reading' the while book.

and twp....sigh, long time since anyone said that to me

Wonderful news about your ds, mb. Like the other posters, I am not surprised. My mother who used to teach woodwind had pupils with dyslexia who had no problems reading music. I'm sure having an opportunity to succeed with reading something must help the confidence of struggling readers. So I think it is very sad that not all schools teach their pupils how to read music (and particularly that my sons' school doesn't!). ds3 (in Year 2) is learning recorder this year but without notation. (So I'm covering the notation myself at home). Has any research been done on whether reading music helps with reading that could be used as ammunition to get notation taught in state primary schools (as it was 30 years ago!).

MB this book is fantastic It's mainly sticker-based, so appeals to children who don't particularly like writing. Suitable for any age from about 4 I would say. DS2 loved it, and the second book as well.