Reading at first sight

Unseen pieces. Each level has reading pieces made for it, in sets; from Level 2 to Level 5 a set adds one more, played with a violin the app plays. When you have read them all, the app makes new ones. One piece of each set is in a key of an earlier level, so the keys you have learned keep coming back.

Passages from the Method. From Level 2, a set can also hold 8 to 16 bars you have never played from a Method piece two or three levels below. The app names the piece once you have read it.

At first sight. The score waits for as long as you want to look; nothing is timed. Start when you are ready. Your first take is the one that counts, so Listen and Wait for me open only after it, and the notes take no colours while you play. A few questions about what the page prints come first.

The reading score. Each first take is scored out of 100 for how well the page was read: right notes 30, rhythm 35, keeping going 25 and a steady pulse 10, with the printed marks counting 10 where the level writes them. A take passes at first sight from 80. How long you looked, your touch and a slower tempo held steadily cost nothing.

Your reading level. A level is yours when 3 of your last 4 unseen pieces at it pass at first sight. Reading climbs on its own: it can be ahead of your pieces or behind them.

Rounds of 4. The next piece adapts to how you read: one level up after a piece passed at first sight, one down after two misses in a row, never more than one level from yours.

The reading test. Take it at any time from the Method’s Reading tab: up to 5 short phrases, each read once without stopping, from your reading level up, one level higher after each pass. A miss gives a second phrase at the same level, and a second miss steps down. It sets your reading level and records how long you looked at each phrase.