Piano Parent Tip: Read Your Child's Assignment Page

Photo by incurable_hippie

Welcome to the first installment of Monday Piano Parent Tips! If you have a child who studies piano, you'll want to check out these weekly ideas for establishing a good relationship with your piano teacher and helping your child enjoy success with piano lessons.

Today's Tip:  Be sure that you read your child's assignment page, and be sure that your child reads it every time he/she sits down to practice. I ask my students to bring a ring binder notebook, and I write an assignment page at every lesson. Other teachers use different systems, but nearly all of them send home written assignments. (If they don't, you might consider asking them to.) Reading the assignments helps you know whether your child is organizing his practice time to cover all of the assignments or spending all of his piano time on one piece, or maybe even playing things that weren't assigned. One of the most frequent things I hear from students is, "Oh, I forgot that I was supposed to work on that piece," or learn that scale or study those terms and symbols, even though I had written the assignment in the notebook. We end up repeating part of the lesson from the week before, and this is not a good use of your investment in piano study!

I also frequently write information for parents on the assignment page. Once, I had a parent call me to ask, "I know there's a recital coming up, but I don't know the date or what my child is supposed to play." I had to answer, "I've written the date, time, and location for the recital in your child's notebook at the last three lessons, and the recital pieces have been listed there for the last two months." The parent admitted, a bit sheepishly, that she had never looked there.

So, piano parents, be sure to read those assignment pages! Thanks in advance for your support!