Edited+Choral+Sight+Reading+Prep

My lesson is on how you can help students to improve their sight reading skills. I sat in on a lot of choral auditions this semester and I have noticed that sight singing is something that all of my students are currently struggling on. I wanted to provide more options to help them approach sight singing next time. This lesson was one that was used during one of my observations. The Standards that are included in this lesson plan are Sing, Listen, Evaluate, and Read/ Notate.

The Behavioral Learning objectives are that the students will be able to accurately incorporate solfege into their sight reading practice.

Materials that were used for the this lesson were as follows Solfege Sheets Projector for sigt reading example. Six measures of sight singing

1. First we started with with a warm up. (I've been starting all of their warm ups in the key of D major to help build their relative pitch.) we did a warm up that helped familiarize them with solfege. They would sing through the major scale like such: Do-Do-Re-Do-Do-Re-Mi-Re-Do-Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Mi-Re-Do etc. They would do this all the way through the solfege. (from Do to Do). Once they seemed familiar with the solfege, I would have them split up into sections and try and do the warm up in a round. That way it makes them listen closer to their own section. After they were done with this portion of the warm up, we will make it a little harder and take out one solfege syllable like "Fa". They would go through the entire warm up and skip "Fa". This causes them to try and listen for the skips between Mi and Sol. Everytime we repeat this lesson, we will remove a different solfege syllable.

2. After our extensive warm up, we would look to the board where I had previously written a six measure sight singing example. This example would usually include steps and skips so that they can hear the differences between having to sing steps and skips. They have gotten so used to singing "Do-Mi-Sol" due to their warm ups. I want to incorporate skips like "Re-Fa-La" So that they can hear the difference between Major and Minor triads. When we did this in class they were pretty successful at using solfege to help them their sight reading. I started off by just pointing at random notes in the sight reading example just to make sure that they could pick out the solfege. Then we would start from the beginning and sing through the whole example at a certain tempo.

3. After we have sang through it collectively, I will split them up by rows and have them sing through the example. If any of the groups mess up on a solfege (pitch or solfege name) we will stop and have the class collectively sing the actual pitch or say what the actual solfege name is. The reason I am hitting solfege so hard is because they haven't used solfege much if at all, and they seem like they need to have some form of understanding of how to approach sight singing.

4. After we have gone through the sight singing example and have definitely established the key. I will go to the piano and play a note in the key and they would tell me what solfege that was. We would do that until I feel like they really have the hang of it.

5. Finally I will stand in front of the class and use the solfege hand symbols and they will sing the solfege back to me. I always have them do the hand symbols with me. This way they are exploring more than one option when approaching sight singing.

6. I like the idea of using a projector for the sight reading and constantly changing the sight singing example to keep students from learning it without actually sight reading it.

When we've done this in class it has proven to work really well. I have actually repeated this lesson a couple times so far and I can already see a huge improvement in their sight reading skills. They are so much better now at sight singing and so many of them have already told me that it is due to the fact that now they feel like they know how to approach it.