Can S-Cubed Sight Singing Program Be Successful with High School or Elementary Students? A Blog Post by Dale Duncan

Update from June 2017:  Click this link or click the picture below to watch a video I made about this commonly asked question:

"Does S-Cubed work for high school students?

Here is the latest review from a high school teacher who started using S-Cubed the first year that I offered it:

His response:

I wrote this response in April 2014 to a teacher who asked if S-Cubed would work in a High School setting-

First and foremost, S-Cubed is designed to be used in the Middle School classroom with middle school children.  However, that being said, teachers of older and younger children can glean lots of ideas from using S-Cubed and with some modifications based on your knowledge of your students, I believe it can be used with other age groups with success.  

S-Cubed is as much a teaching method specifically for teachers as it is a sight singing course for students.  In each lesson, I share with teachers numerous teaching approaches that I think can help teachers of all levels with their approach to teaching sight singing.  It is designed to help teachers solve the riddle of teaching this difficult subject.  I teach rhythm techniques, techniques to help with private practice time, hand-use techniques to improve results, ear training that will help you in your choral literature and much more.  

I have a theory that, without proper musical development, human beings stay at about a 6th grade level in their ability to harmonize, keep steady beat, and read the dots on the page with success.  I address all of that in S-Cubed.  No other method that I can find actually teaches the teacher how to teach sight singing in the way I've done using video instruction and video teaching examples of the method being used in real time.

I took 27 weeks (10-15 minutes daily/3-4 times per week) to teach Lessons 1-27.  A high school teacher may be able to move more quickly than that?  Just a thought.   You know your students best and can make the best decisions about how to modify the lessons if you choose to go forward with S-Cubed.

Also, until Tuesday of next week (April 30, 2014), I am selling the entire method for $50 if you buy the 5-lesson bundles sets.  Each bundle is $10.  It normally costs $81 if you buy the full set which just became available 3 weeks ago.   It won't be this inexpensive again because of a change I'm about to make to my store.  Now that I am finished creating and uploading the entire method, I am going to change the price structure starting May 1, 2014.  My goal all along has been to encourage people to use the entire method, rather than a single lesson, so, now that I've finished the huge undertaking of uploading everything I've taught this year, I am changing the pricing structure to encourage the use of the full method.  The cost of individual lessons will rise to $5 per lesson.  The 5 lesson bundles will be $4 per lesson.  The full 27 lesson package will stay at $3 per lesson for a total cost of $81.  No other full method of sight singing can be used forever with multitudes of students year after year at this cost.  Books have to be bought and replaced.  Once the teacher solidly learns these techniques, you simply print out the documents each year.  And if you classroom has a SmartBoard of some type, you don't even have to print.  You simply project each example on the board.  It's a big cost savings on the front end AND on the back end.

Here is a link to my store:

Link Directly to My Store

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