About My Sight Singing and Sight Reading Program!

S-Cubed!  Successful Sight Singing for Middle School Teachers and their Students!  #scubed #sightsinging

First and foremost, I recommend that you read what real middle school, elementary and high school teachers in classrooms all over the world.

Here is what they are saying!

Simply "google" Middle School Sight Singing to discover all of my free and paid resources for teaching middle school beginners to sight sing in an engaging way that works!

Link directly to my lessons on TPT where you will find very detailed product descriptions with links from one lesson to the next.

Want to add Music Prodigy Practice and Assessment Program to supplement your daily S-Cubed lessons so your children can sing directly into their computers/laptops/smartphones and work to improve upon what you've taught with S-Cubed?  Click here!

Link Directly to My YouTube Channel with lots of Teaching Tips and Teaching Examples.

Come be a part of my Facebook "LIVE" learning sessions!  It's an ongoing continuing education class!  Click here and "like" or "follow" my page!  Click here to join thousands of other middle school teachers on our Facebook Page "I Teach Middle School Chorus!".  On that page, we keep it positive and support each other.  We are all on the same team.  




Click the picture to go to the Video

Link to a video description of S-Cubed!

The Philosophy:

Recognize what the children don't know.  Don't fault them for not knowing it.  Then, teach it to them in a way they will remember forever...  That is the philosophy of S-Cubed:  Successful Sight Singing for Middle School Teachers and their Students!  ...How to teach Sight Singing to Middle School Beginners...


With S-Cubed!, I have aimed to create a way for teachers to improve how they 

teach sight singing to their upper elementary and middle school students using

21st Century Technology.   I believe that text books have served their purpose.

They certainly helped me in my development as a teacher, and I respect the 

work that went into the creation of each and every one of them.  But now, in the

21st century, I think it is time to help struggling teachers using all of the 

technologies that are available at our finger tips.  I wanted to create a learning 

tool that people could use from their phones as well as their work computers!  

filled this system with downloadable, ready-to-use reusable lesson plans,

sight singing examples and rhythm exercises that are complete with direct links
   
to video teaching tips for each lesson and video teaching examples of me 

teaching the lesson.  I included the teaching examples because throughout my 

early career, I always wanted to go into the classrooms of teachers and watch 

them teach.    S-Cubed is a two-year long workshop with lesson plans included,

however, it can be purchased in smaller chunks is you don't see your children 

very often.

I use S-Cubed myself in my own classroom and it works wonders 

with beginners.  It's a philosophy and a method wrapped together.  In the 

lessons, I have revealed every secret I've learned as I have taught mostly 

beginners over the last 20-plus years I've taught public school.  I needed 

something more than a textbook when I started teaching, and I wanted to 

supply teachers with something more when I created this program. 
When I started teaching middle school students how to sight sing music, all I 

remember is the moans and the failures.
I would say "Pull out the Sight Singing books".  They would moan.
They would begin singing a Sight Singing example and by measure two, they 

completely stopped singing and stared at me.
It was horrible.
I looked everywhere for a program that would solve this horrible daily 

experience.  Nothing that I found worked.  The elementary methods were 

mostly fun-filled activities and games, but were vastly inadequate.  Every single

method for middle school that I found moved too fast for this age group and 

none of them taught me how to teach them the enormous variety of skills they

needed to become as fluent as I wanted them to be.   It was as though they

assumed the children who walked in the door of your classroom either took 

private lessons or went to elementary school at a special music school.
I needed something that combined fun and rigor that would end up in fluency!
I wanted my students to be able to successfully read 3-part music with difficult

skips and rhythms by the time they left me in 8th grade.
When I moved the Georgia, I had to create something that worked out of 

necessity because the first time I took my students into the sight singing room,

I was absolutely shocked.  The standard of Sight Singing performance that was

expected at the annual state adjudicated festival in this state was much higher

than the states in which I had previously taught.  I couldn't believe the level of 

proficiency required by the students from 6th-8th grade.  The truth is that I

couldn't have read that level of material in my freshman year of college. I was

not comfortable having my children go into the Sight Singing room each year 

and fail because I hadn't prepared them.  Over time, I figured it out, but year 

after year, I watched so many of my colleagues and their students walk out of 

the sight singing room completely disillusioned that I decided I had to find a

way to share what I had learned.
With technology, I've figured out the delivery method!  I don't think there is 

anything else like S-Cubed that is available to teachers.   Using the internet, I 

share my daily sight singing activities and procedures, sight singing examples,

rhythm exercises and so much more with other teachers as well as provide

video teaching tips and actual video of me teaching the various lessons so that

other teachers can use the resources to improve their own approach to 

teaching sight singing to their beginners.


I began collecting reviews soon after I finished creating the program in the spring of 2014.  

Imagine my surprise on November 15, 2014, when I posted the comment below on a
Facebook group for Music Teachers, and Roger Emerson, one of the best middle school
arrangers/composers in the world wrote this!




To see more reviews, click here and here.


S-Cubed is endorsed and used by the Durham School of the Arts in Durham, North Carolina and many programs around the world!

S-Cubed is designed to be effective, usable on a daily basis, fun, methodical, interactive and successful each and every day specifically for this age group.

Using my program, I make sure that ALL of my students can read music when they leave my classroom.   Most of them come to me with no background in reading music. By the end of their 6th grade year, they are highly proficient readers. Because I have such large groups of students in one classroom, my Sight Singing program is ideal for teaching in a group setting.

This is a sample of my students preparing to read a very difficult Sight Singing example at their adjudicated festival using all of the techniques I methodically taught to them: click here! 

This is 5 minutes later, click here!

You and your beginners can do it too!









48 comments

  1. Hi Dale, it sounds like a very interesting course but I am coming from a learners perspective. Is this course suitable for teaching yourself sight-singing? Thanks

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  2. Hello Millie! Thanks for visiting my blog! There are many things that singers who want to learn to sight sing can learn from S-Cubed, but it is specifically designed for teachers who are teaching young singers (Middle School) in the group setting. The purpose is help the teacher be successful as I help them learn to address issues that are specific to this age group, and for the students to be successful as a result! Thanks again for visiting my blog!

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  3. A very good and informative article indeed . It helps me a lot to enhance my knowledge, I really like the way the writer presented his views. I hope to see more informative and useful articles in future.
    Singing Lessons in Nashville

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  4. Nice post this will give a great boost to every singing lover to make singing as their career.
    London singing lessons

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  6. I hope I win this program! I have been using the forbidden pattern with my kindergarten class and they insist we do this everyday. Their singing voices are improving and their hand signs are becoming much more fluent. Would love to see what the additional levels have to offer!

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    1. That's awesome to hear! I've heard from many high school teachers and from elementary teachers who teach students as young as fourth grade who are using S-Cubed, but you are the first person I've heard from who is using S-Cubed in Kindergarten! Thanks for sharing!

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  7. Looking forward to checking this out since I'm being moved from K-5 to K-12 next year!

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    1. That's a big move! I am in awe of teachers who can shift gears and relate to students from such different age groups!

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  8. Your organizational ideas, teaching techniques, and motivational strategies are wonderful!

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    1. Thank you! So happy it's helping folks. Teaching the kids in the middle isn't the easiest job we could have all chosen, but together, those of us in the trenches everyday can figure out how to make it easier for ourselves and everyone else!

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  10. This is my first visit here and I’m fully satisfying to read the whole thing at one place. Sound Hunter

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  11. Your blog and information is really good. Keep it up. Not only does slouching look like you couldn't care less, but it also prevents your lungs from filling up. Full lungs keep your voice from cracking, make you sound more powerful and keep you from running out of air.

    Jason@VanEman

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  12. Very interested in finding out more!

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  13. High school director now teaching middle and high school... Hoping your ideas will help me connect more with this age group!

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  14. I have a 6-12 program and truly want to graduate music readers! I would love to have this program! Very impressed with what I've seen and heard!

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  15. I am a band director turned choir director and still struggling with teaching fundamentals in my program and keeping the kids engaged. I need to fundraise before I can buy the full program, but I am excited to learn more for now from the videos and try some new things!

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  16. Wish this had been around when I was teaching middle school. I hope the our new teacher can benefit from this system!

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  17. Wish this had been around when I was teaching middle school. I hope the our new teacher can benefit from this system!

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  18. Have used the sample lesson and it works wonders.

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  19. Have used the sample lesson and it works wonders.

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  20. Great presentation today! #ncmea2015

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  21. This is something I would be extremely interested in using in my classroom. I teach at two middle schools on a semester rotation with over 220 members in each school's chorus. It is great to see that you truly understand middle school students. So many resources are completely over their heads and they quickly become disengaged. This will become an everyday tool in both of my classrooms. #NCMEA2015 --Kyle Cook -- kcook@currituck.k12.nc.us

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  22. #ncmea15
    Thanks for coming! This is a wonderful resource!
    -Wendi Kittlaus

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  23. So excited to try this! #ncmea2015

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  24. What an INCREDIBLY enthusiastic and successful way to teach music!! I am so thrilled to begin this program with my music scholars! #ncmea15

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  25. Thank you for a great presentation! #ncmea15

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  26. Great learning about your curriculum, would love to try it! #ncmea15

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  27. I love the Forbidden Pattern! The kids really respond to the activity and truly focus their listening!

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  28. I will be student teaching soon, great resources !!

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  29. I know you said that you keep track of each class as they beat you at Forbidden Pattern. How/where do you post it? Is it like a chart that you check when they win? I bought your program and am looking to set up this tracker for the kids

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  30. I student taught in the second semester of school so I wasn't there for any of establishing a classroom or how to begin so I've been making it up as I go... This would be awesome to grab some more ideas and to be more successful! I've heard a lot of great things from teachers in my area (Michigan)

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    1. Thank you so much! I think we ALL make it up as we go! :-) Establishing structure in the early days is key. I tried to share as many ideas as possible in Middle School New Chorus Teacher Starter Pack. Best of luck to you!

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  32. There are the best concerning thoughts given and one nearly have to produce exactly the same as mentioned above so they would be liable to give something good out of such piece elements.

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  33. Thank you very much for is essential. If you need flr repeated before attempting to sing and it is much less expensive. Listing of all classes, coaching and training institutes for Singing Classes, guitar Classes, Performing Arts Music Classes, Vocal Music Classes in gurgaon

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  34. Hi, I have heard a lot about this but after the little I've read/seen I am wondering if your method includes audiation techniques. In the first video the kids are all learning their parts out loud (which seems to work well for them). I live in a state where the rules are to audiate the passage/s and then sing them. I teach my students to sight read with audiation and wish there were some methods out there that can enhance what I am teaching them. It is a vague term for young singers- not an easy skill learn or teach. Yet, it is what is expected when I take them to the state contest.
    If you have this included in your program can you share a little more about it?

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  35. I actually have a question about the product. I have used a few of the free resources and want to purchase the bundle, but my administrators are wondering if it is a one time purchase or a yearly renewal? Thanks so much!

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  36. I purchased the Distance Learning Version of S-Cubed. The sight reading examples that are included do not have Key signatures so to my eyes they are all in the Key of C but that is not how they were intended to be used. Is there a reason the key signatures were left off the sight reading? Thanks!

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    1. Yes! The reason they aren't needed for the beginner until later in the method. Every single choice I made when I created this method is outlined in the method either through the lesson plans, the teaching tips videos or the teaching example videos. I wanted the teachers to simply be able to follow the method day by day and trust the process.

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