Learning how to read music is a big challenge initially for all beginning music students, regardless of which instrument they are studying. For very young students, concepts such as the alphabet and the ability to track symbols on the printed page from left to right may be fairly recent achievements. For this reason, many teachers of very young students (younger than six years old) will opt to delay note reading and focus on the development of technique and listening skills through rote learning of pieces.
The Suzuki method, in particular, is famous for this approach. I agree with the assertion that music is a form of aural communication and not a written one, and very good results can be achieved quickly using this approach. However, music students, and pianists in particular, are done a great disservice if note reading is delayed for too long after studies begin.
Why am I singling out pianists? Don't all instrumentalists and singers have to decipher the same kind of musical notation? Well, yes and no. There are challenges specific to the piano that lead me to believe that young pianists should begin looking at written music as early as possible.
The most obvious challenge is that pianists play an instrument capable of playing many different notes simultaneously. A flute student, for instance, is only ever called upon to play one note at a given time. A violinist, likewise, will be playing only one note at a time for most of a piece, and only occasionally will have the opportunity to play two or three notes together in a chord. Pianists, on the other hand, spend most of the time playing multiple notes with both hands simultaneously, resulting in three to eight notes at a time. The sheer volume of information that needs to be processed at any given moment is what requires a pianist to be an expert note reader. Any deficiencies in their ability to read complex music will hinder their ability to sight read or learn new pieces quickly.
This difficulty is compounded by the fact that pianists must also manage the multiple rhythmic patterns that result from all of these notes. They must learn to see music not just one note or one beat at a time. Only by processing a measure, or even an entire phrase of music at a time, are pianists able to perform music of great rhythmic complexity.
When children start out with methods of learning that stress listening over reading, they become quite proficient at playing complicated music more quickly than they would if they were required to read the music for themselves. The danger is that if their note reading ability does not quickly catch up to their playing ability, the child will always struggle with learning new pieces when they don't have someone to demonstrate for them. The ability to simply pick up sheet music and play it will always elude them.
For this reason, I think it is imperative that beginning piano students start becoming familiar with music notation from the very onset of their lessons.
However, by this I do not mean that all of their pieces must be learned by reading notes off of a printed page. There are tremendous benefits to learning pieces by ear, especially when considering the needs of very young children. But even in cases where a child learns most or all of their repertoire by rote for the first six to twelve months of their studies, there is no reason why they shouldn't be simultaneously making baby steps on the road to understanding music notation.
Young children can start out with learning about rhythms and how written symbols correspond to long and short sounds. They might try clapping different rhythms or playing them on a drum or other percussion instrument.
They can also the different patterns that notes make in a simple melody. Notes can go up or go down. Students should be seeing how these sounds and patterns correspond to the notes being placed higher or lower on the music staff.
As they are able, children can work on learning the music alphabet forwards and backwards, from A to G and backwards from G to A. They can play simple games like, "What comes next?" or "What comes before?" From there, they can learn where those different letter notes are found on the piano and then, eventually, where they are found on the music staff.
There are many benefits from starting out on the piano at a very young age. It is not necessary to wait until children are in Kindergarten or First Grade. But even in the case of the very young beginner, aspects of note reading should be introduced early on to insure that music reading ability is able to keep up with music playing ability.
Luke Bartolomeo has been involved in the nurturing and development of young musicians for over twenty years. He is the host of the weekly audio podcast Repertoire Review, which allows teachers and students the chance to discover new piano pieces for intermediate level students. He is on the faculty of the Sherwood Community Music School at Columbia College in Chicago. He is also a developer of educational music apps. Flashnote Derby is an app he created to help students learn the names of music notes.
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