Monday, June 20, 2011

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!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Laura,

I'm really looking forward to this new series of Monday posts. What a wonderful idea!! Thanks!

Nicole said...

This is going to be a GREAT series of posts! I am so excited for my student's parents to read this. Actually, I was so excited that I blogged about it! http://nickel-notes.blogspot.com/2011/06/exciting-new-posts-for-parents.html
Thanks so much!

BusyB said...

Can I quote you on my blog if I put a link to your blog?

Laura Lowe said...

Sure, Busy B!

Teacher Mum said...

Thanks for stopping by my blog. My younger son started learning to play this year, so I am glad I found you. Looking forward to following you.

Teachermum
www.teachermum.com

Di said...

It is so frustrating when parents and students don't read the assignment page, and students turn up to their next lesson having fooled their parents into thinking they have practised all week what they were supposed to when really they weren't doing productive practise at all.

Or students say "I didn't know I was supposed to practise that one".

Hmmm...

Thanks for these tips. Looking forward to reading more.