I've always been puzzled by why sight-reading is even a thing. An English teacher will never say ‘we're going to sight-read this story’. If a child has gained the requisite reading and comprehension skills and the chosen book is at an appropriate standard, they should be able to read it reasonably fluently first time round. Subsequent re-readings of the text may then lead to a deeper understanding. Shouldn't this apply equally to music? This might sound a little simplistic, but in truth, much of Paul Harris's book How to sight-read covers the basics of music reading – in order to sight-read better, you need to read better. As he acknowledges in the introduction, ‘often the terms reading and sight-reading are used a little arbitrarily’.
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