Note reading games for kids: 10 to play at home

A child learns to read notes a few at a time, with short daily practice. Games make that practice easy to repeat. These ten games take five minutes each. Most use the free note name flashcards or a sheet of big staff paper.

Before you start

• One clef at a time. Start with the clef your child’s instrument uses. Piano students often start with a few notes on each side of middle C.
• A few notes at a time. Three to five notes is enough for one game.
• Know the phrases. The lines of the treble staff, from the bottom, are E, G, B, D, and F: “Every Good Boy Does Fine.” The spaces spell “face.” The lines of the bass staff are G, B, D, F, and A: “Good Boys Do Fine Always.” The spaces are A, C, E, and G: “All Cows Eat Grass.”

Read treble clef and bass clef note names explained.

Ten games

1. Floor staff. Put five long strips of tape on the floor. Call a note. Your child jumps to the right line or space. Then toss a bean bag, and name the note it lands on.

2. Flashcard race. Lay out five flashcards. Time how long your child takes to name them all. Write down the time, and try to beat it the next day. Add one new card when the time drops.

3. Spell a word. The musical alphabet has seven letters, A to G. Many words use only those letters. Write a word as notes on the staff, and your child reads it. Then swap.

Short words	Longer words
Bag, bed, egg, dad, add, ace, cab, fed	Cage, face, bead, deaf, fade, edge, feed
Beg, age, gab, fad, bee	Badge, faced, added, cabbage, baggage

4. Landmark notes. Learn three notes by heart: middle C, the G that the treble clef curls around, and the F between the two dots of the bass clef. Find them on a page of music. Every other note is a short count from one of them.

5. Line or space? Hold up a card. Your child calls “line” or “space” first, and then the name. This slows the eye down, which helps with guessing.

6. Step, skip, or same? Draw two notes side by side. Your child says whether the second is a step up, a skip up, a step down, a skip down, or the same. Reading the distance between notes is as useful as reading the names.

7. Draw it. Call a letter. Your child draws the note on big staff paper. A note on a line has the line through its middle. A note in a space fits between two lines.

8. Find it on the keys. Hold up a card. Your child names it and plays it. With no piano, point to it on the piano keyboard chart.

9. Memory match. Print the flashcards, and cut each card in two where it would fold. You now have note cards and letter cards. Turn them all face down. A pair is a note and its letter name.

10. Beat the trainer. The note name trainer shows a note and waits for the answer. Choose the treble clef, the bass clef, or both, and lines only, spaces only, or all the notes. It counts how many your child gets right in a row.

Which game for which stage

Stage	Games
The first weeks	1, 5, and 7
Knows a few notes	2, 4, 8, and 9
Knows the staff	3, 6, and 10
Ready for more	Add ledger lines. Read ledger lines explained.

Common troubles

What happens	What to try
The child counts up from the bottom line every time	Teach the three landmark notes
The child reads treble notes in the bass clef	Do one clef a day, and say the clef’s name before each card
The child knows the cards but not the page	Name five notes in the real piece before playing it
The child writes letter names in the book	Write in the hard ones only, and rub them out after a week
The child guesses	Use fewer cards

From naming to playing

Naming a note is the first half. The second half is finding it on the instrument without stopping. Each day, your child can name the notes of one new line of music, and then play it at a slow, steady speed. Read RCM sight reading: how to practice at home and how to read music: the basics in ten minutes.

Print and play

• Note name flashcards
• Treble clef note chart
• Bass clef note chart
• Big staff paper for kids
• Note name trainer