Big Mistake No. 1 (for this year)

I taught some chords first! I gave in to the impulse to get some immediate gratification and just taught some chords. They're just so much more satisfying. I've always done it that way with private lessons. If there is any confusion about playing single note melodies you can give immediate feedback and fix the problem. But what do you do when you've got six kids still strumming multiple strings?

I've only had a problem with it in one class but it's still frustrating. I think the problem stemmed from one thing...

I used stickers this year.

Yeah, you can see them in the pictures. I had to because my first period class is an inclusion class and I have four "special needs" students who really needed it. Then, when I tried to teach them to play individual notes they kept going back to the stickers. ...and strumming multiple strings.

I think we will be able to get them going in a couple of days but if I had the same kids again I probably would begin with the note-reading first. I think it's easier to teach the concept of "those three notes we learned are all in this G chord" than teaching it the other way around.

A couple of these kids will probably never be able to get the note-reading and the others will be behind my regular ed students.

Something to think about:

How do you teach kids within a very wide range of ability levels in a classroom setting?

I don't know if my thinking is correct, but I've basically been giving my more medium level and advanced kids things to work on and letting them practice while I work with others who require more intensive instruction. Also, they're not necessarily working on the same thing at the same time.

I think that this idea can work when teaching beginner guitar because so much of it is just practicing. They have to initially understand the concept but after it's been taught they have to work on learning it kinesthetically through muscle memory. Later, it's more about musicianship, and then, I could see having a problem with this aproach. But the Mattster's open to suggestions. If you have experience with this, please share your ideas with me.

One thing I've gotten out of this is that I'm teaching them some new terms. They are now learning that we 'pick' individual 'notes' and we 'strum' 'chords'. I've also taken the time to notate the chords. This is helpful, even if they can't read all of the notes yet, because it shows them what it looks like on the staff to have more than one note at a time.

Anyway, TGIF!

I told them that if they worked hard I'd give them a free day tomorrow (Saturday). They groaned. I know it's a stale old joke but I'm kind of a stale old guy.