How long till I will be able to read notes quickly and play?

[doryanne]

Hi,
I started taking piano lessons last year in February, so almost an year ago. Because I love this instrument ans I practice every day at least one hour, I made progresses fast and now I can play some nice pieces - of course, my performance is modest ("Valse - Op.P2 No.11 - in Am (BI 150) by Chopin, for example).
My challenge now is "Rivers flow in you" by Yruma which is not easy and I wil have to work a lot - with the help of my teacher - to play it right.
What bothers me is that I still write the notes below on the music sheet because it is hard for me to read directly the notes when I have to play. So I take one by one and write them and then I read this. I would like not to do this anymore, my teacher says I should be patient, but I am not    How much time do you think it will take? Some tips to get rid of this habit, little by little?
The good thing  - I think - is that once I learn a piece, I don't need to look at the music sheet anymore, I play by heart and with my heart...

Thank you!

[oxy60]

It's not you. The more difficult the piece, the longer the music stays on the stand. You will be able to read quicker as time goes on. I know others have told you to be patient. They're not kidding. Look how far you've come in the first year. Next year the gain will be even greater.

[littletune]

My piano teacher and my music theory teacher don't allow us to write the names of the notes below... they say that if we do we would never learn to really read the notes... so i have never done that... but i play only very easy pieces for little kids for now so its not that hard 
and i learn to play without looking at the notes very quickly too and my piano teacher doesn't like that so much either... because then sometimes she says i should play only one part of the piece and she shows me that part and i need a really long time to figure out what part that is so sometimes she says i should still look at the notes when im playing and play slowly even if i dont need to. And sometimes i like playing very easy pieces (that are easy even for me) and that i dont know yet and i feel so cool if i can just look at them for the first time and play them right   .
and sometimes im just writing my own notes and think about which ones they are and what they would sound like

[pianowolfi]

The reason why I encourage students to play with the music and, most important, read along as they play, even if they have already memorized a piece: To get them away from the really bad habit of deciphering tediously three pages of music for weeks, play them twice and (because most of them memorize really fast) then never look at the music again. Of course that way you will never learn to read fluently, you will always stay deciphering tediously. If you want to learn reading/sight reading properly, you have to practice it looking at the music and reading along as you play, as often as you can. If you play by heart close the music and put it away.

And yes, writing the letters under the notes is a strict no no. They are already written
And yes littletune, writing notes yourself is certainly very helpful

And maybe somebody here will say "what the heck this guy sounds exactly like my teacher" who knows
perhaps I am your teacher! Muahahah