Piano tutor books for DS aged 7, yr 3. Any recommendations?

[miljee]

DS has JUST started showing some interest in our keyboard. Piano teachers are like hens' teeth around here so I was wondering if anyone could recommend a beginners piano book for this age group? They do music at school but it's all 'African rhythms' etc, no actual 'how to read music' so we need to start from scratch. DH and I can both read music so some parental input will be fine!

My children used the Bastien piano books

www.sheetmusicplus.com/store/smp_bastien.html?cart=

I use the Pauline Hall books. But there are also some good ones by Carol Matz (Alfred).

Don't expect your child to learn to read music in class at school. For that he needs to learn an instrument - usually taught by peripatetic teacher to small groups, if you can't/don't want to go private. Some schools have a keyboard peri so it might be worth enquiring.

Do you have a friendly neighbourhood music shop? I used to work in one about a hundred years ago and would have been happy to meet someone in your position and give you a chair to look through say the 3 or 4 bestselling ones.

Bastien, Chester, Joanna McGregor, John Thompson are all popular. BUt even though I've taught quite a lot of this age child now I still haven't settled on one - because actually it depends on the child. Some children need a very slow approach, consolidating things 20 times before moving on, others get bored really quickly, some need a 'gimmick', others want to play 'real tunes they know'. So my advice would be to go to a good music shop, and look through them all and find one that you think you will both enjoy (it's important you like it!!!). THey all cover the same things mainly - the first book will generally get you playing things with 10 fingers between F below middle C and G above it (i.e middle C position, no position changes).

ds was started on the Microjazz series, which seemed OK. (It's not just jazzy stuff, there's a good range of styles. I think? it may move quite slowly, which suited ds & was also good for me as I have no piano background at all.)