Advice appreciated concerning 10-yr old

[pianodeanne]

Hello!  I recently took on a new student.  Her mother sent her to me, because she was at another place for 2 years, and she is still only at Level 1.  I thought the people there were only trying to take their money, and when she came to me, I discovered WHY she is only at Level 1:  She knows her notes on the keyboard and the music, but when she plays a song, she always starts about a 4th lower or higher!  It seems as though she has a "Dyslexia" of the piano!  Have any of you seen this before, and do you have any suggestions?  She had her second lesson with me and is still doing this.  She seems to know how the pieces go, but doesn't start in the right place!  I would really appreciate your input on this.

[franklin]

thats very weird.  

[louellen]

Try trading roles.  Imitate her approach and see what she says.  I imagine she is just being lazy, but another possibility is that she feels pressured to begin quickly.  Because piano lessons are so short and so structured, students can feel like they are always taking a test.  Try to help her relax by doing another activity first.  

My students memorize a lot and are encouraged to spend most of their practice time on familiar pieces.  This eventually solves the problem of locating a position.  If not, I ask, "Are your hands in the right position?  Which hand starts? Which finger?" etc., depending on the student's level of expertise.  

As a last resort, you could try the button reward:  place a pile of buttons near you, one for each song to be played, and give her one each time she places her hands correctly.  Kids don't need big prizes, just an aid for concentration.  Once the problem is solved, be sure to give praise.

Good luck!

[pianodeanne]

louellen,
Thank you for your advice, on both of my questions!  I am glad to have found this site and nice people like you!  

[djar]

Hi there!  You are facing a truly interesting dilemma and it is too bad that two years have gone by without it being addressed yet!  I am a piano teacher who has also had training in working with dyslexics learning to read language, so maybe I can help.  I was prompted to take the dyslexia training when I encountered a truly dyslexic student.  This student came to me at age 11, having learned wonderfully by rote with the Suzuki Method.  However, I discovered when trying to teach this student to read, from week to week the student could not relate how the notes visually on the staff related to upward or downward movement on the piano.  In other words, seeing the notes go higher on the staff visually did not seem to connect with going higher on the piano!  Unfortunately, I lost this sweet little student before he ever learned to read, but I still think that his musical training made a wonderful contribution to his life and that it wasn't wasted.  I was certainly ill-equipped to deal with his dyslexia at the time;  I had absolutely NOTHING in my bag of tricks!

There are many kinds of dyslexia--dyslexia for music, dyslexia for math, dyslexia for reading.  It has nothing to do with intelligence whatsover!  In fact, all the dyslexic children I have known have been extremely intelligent!  Dyslexia comes in varying degrees of severity, too, so that an extremely bright child with mild dyslexia learns to cope so well that even teachers and parents miss it altogether.  

I have learned that dyslexia is frequently associated with "mixed dominance" of the brain.  That is, the student may be right handed, but left footed and may see better with the left eye.   Mixed dominance does not indicate dyslexia, but many dyslexics do have mixed dominance.  As a fun and enlightening little test for mixed dominance, do this:  Take a sheet of paper and roll it into a tube.  Hand it to the student and ask her how many fingers you are holding up.  Observe which eye she uses to look through the tube.  Then take the piece of paper and roll it into a ball.  Ask the student to catch it with one hand, and observe which hand she uses.  Then ask her to throw it with one hand.  Then toss it to her and ask her to kick it back to you.  Is she using both the right and left sides to complete these tasks?  If so, she is mixed dominant.

Then, I would try to isolate the exact degree of difficulty the student is having.  Break every skill down into its tiniest component!  Does the student understand the concepts of "high" and "low" and going up and down on the piano.  Can the student identify the groups of two and three black keys on the piano?  Can the student play a familiar piece with eyes closed (using hearing and feel?)  Can she play the same passage using just the index finger (using visual cues)?  The student must be able to do all these things before he or she is even ready to begin reading music!

Does the student have any trouble reading language?  Dyslexics truly see the world differently from nondyslexics.  A stop sign that says "stop" today may say "bots" or "tops" or "pots" or "spot" tomorrow!  This is what the dyslexic faces every day.  Reading music is difficult because a the horizontal concept of "up and down" on the piano is translated in to a vertical "up and down" on the page.  (Look for a book called A Soprano Standing on Her Head to get an idea of how this feels to a dyslexic person).

It would be a daunting challenge indeed for the dyslexic to learn to read music.  In order to succeed, the student, parent and teacher must be highly patient and and would need to move in extremely small steps and use a multisensory approach;  that is, train visually, aurally, by touch, by writing.  Before they are asked to identify note names, ask them if the note is on a line or a space.  The next step would be to ask them which line or space counting from the bottom.  Don't combine this with rhythms yet;  do rhythms separately using the simplest and most fundamental rhythm cards.  There is a book I can recommend highly that is by Suzuki teacher Michiko Yurko called "No H in Snake" for ideas on how to break these components down into their smallest denominator.

The most important thing of all for a dyslexic is to not let him fail, and make sure he knows he is okay!  Many dyslexics suffer from low self-esteem because they have not succeeded in school, and if they are undiagnosed they can feel they are totally to blame and that they are "stupid."  Everyone has talents, and many dyslexics excel in visual-spatial reasoning.   Their individual talents should be discovered and developed, whether they be in sports or math or dance.    Many famous people were dyslexic--Einstein, Edison, and Nelson Rockefeller, to name a few!  They simply perceive the world in a different way and public schools are not set up to teach in the particular way they learn.  Thomas Edison dropped out of school after being deemed "unteachable," so his mother taught him at home.

The first thing to do is to have a frank discussion with the parent and have a game plan that is in the best interest of the student.  I certainly recommend professional evaluation if indicators are pointing to dyslexia.  The parent can check with the student's school counselor for a referral.  Other factors would be the teacher's confidence level in working with this student, the support of the parent, the motivation of the student to stick with it and the willingness to move in very small steps and celebrate each success.

This is certainly a difficult dilemma for any teacher.  I hope I have been of some help.