Dyslexic student

[ChristmasCarol]

A 9 year old student I have has been challening me greatly to figure out how to help her play the piano.  Her brain seemed not to be able to differentiate left and right hand at all - ever.  I learned an old Huna technigue years ago for self-healing that goes; if you "talk" to the body it hears you.  So, I had her, starting with her thumbs say the finger numbers out loud and tap the fingers accordingly back and forth a couple of times.  Voilla, she played right through her pieces.  She likes playing and when she has memorized a piece she plays it with great style.  Has anyone else had this kind of situation?  This girl has not been diagnosed in school and this problem has only appeared at the piano.

[Swan]

Yes, I have a similar challenge with a just turned six year old.  I ask her, 'what hand do we use?" and put my hand up in the air, and she still gets it wrong.  I have to tell her to 'have a look at my hand, is it the same as yours?" She then gets it right.

tap the fingers accordingly back and forth a couple of times.

I've done something similar here too.  We sing the piece first, and as we sing I touch the finger she has to play with.  Then we sing it again, and she has to touch the finger to play with.  Then she plays it.  If I don't do things like this, she's all over the place, changing hands half way through, using the back of any ole finger she likes etc.

She doesn't have dyslexia though, just needs a bit of work to focus.  I've found this is pretty typical for this age group.  A nine year old is a different story though.  How long has she been playing?

[ChristmasCarol]

She's had nine months of piano lessons with me.  She shakes her head hard when she knows screwed up.  One educator I know suggested that maybe she'd be better off with a one note at a time instrument.  I'm not ready to give up, cause she doesn't want to give up.

[Daevren]

I know people that are dyslexic have problems with left and right, my father and I have too, but only minor.

I don't have this problem. I do have problems with identifying other people's left and right.

Dyslexia is a learning disorder. I heard that they recently discovered that dyslexic people have problems with balancing. They have problems with learning very simple everyday patterns(?that are regulated in the brain stem?).

I wonder if dyslexia makes the 'muscle memory' less accurate too. Because that is pretty similair and would also be a problem for musicians.

Personally I only suffer from major spelling and grammer errors.

The solution would be practice, practice, practice. Dyslexic people can learn it too, it is only harder to learn.

[Swan]

She's had nine months of piano lessons with me.  She shakes her head hard when she knows screwed up.  

I'd interpret that as a good sign.  At least she can recognise when she's doing it right or wrong.  
Good on you for not giving up.  I've spoken to other teachers who have successfully taught dyslexic students the piano.

The only advice I can really offer is not to be too quick to diagnose her yourself.  Keep an eye on things, and if you really do suspect she has dyslexia then be careful how you approach her parents.  I made the mistake of jumping to this conclusion too soon, offended the mother and turned out to have made a wrong 'diagnosis'.   The girl is still learning with me and her progress is slower than other kids her own age, but it's not because of dyslexia (she too couldn't tell right from left, used to draw her letters back to front etc - but now she's fine).

[ChristmasCarol]

Thanks Swan,
I don't as a rule find labels helpful at all so I didn't say that to the family.  When I asked the mom how she was doing in school she said "Fine, er but not so hot in math and she has trouble with comprehension in reading..."  call me crazy but I think there's some denial going on here.  I read a great book once, "Making the Words Stand Still" at the request of my dyslexic brother who could not read it himself very well.  The main point was that some people are not symbol oriented but need to function in a symbol oriented society.  I try to seek a balance with students who want to play the piano and resist learning to read music.  Thanks for your feed back.

[Daevren]

I know someone who could not read music, very bright person. He studied J.S. Bach by ear.

He also learned some of Liszts transcedental etudes by ear, just by listening to other people's recordings. He did not have perfect pitch, just very good relative and a hell of a memory.

I guess that for some people the really hard way is actually the easy way.