Sight Reading: Trinity College Sight Reading Books

Hi everyone,

In todays post I'm going to talk about the new Trinity College Sight Reading books that released back in 2021. These books replace the 'Sound at Sight' series that was Trinity's previous series of sight reading books.

The new Trinity Sight Reading books are a progressive sight reading method, and these are available for a range of instruments and they are three books all together.

The Sight Reading range consists of sight reading throughout all grades over a period of three books. They are :-

- Initial to Grade 2

- Grades 3- 5

- Grades 6 -8

Each grade consists of 10 lessons, and each lesson consists of five sight reading specimens and also a duet sight reading specimen. At the end of each grade is a selection of 20 sight reading specimen tests.

There's also an element of music theory in each of lessons with each one introducing a different element of music theory.

Initial to Grade 2

Example taken from the Trinity Sight Reading Initial to Grade 2 book

This is the first book of the Trinity Sight Reading Series, and it starts off by introducing basic music theory, and then as the book progresses from Initial to Grade 2 it starts to introduce you to different techniques and time signatures. This is a great introduction to getting you used to reading sheet music, as its laid out nice and simple, and there's an aim to each of the lessons within the book.

Grades 3 - 5

A Grade 4 Example taken from the Trinity Sight Reading Grades 3 -5 book

The Grades 3 - 5 book is aimed at students who are around the intermediate stage of their grades. So this book is slightly harder than the Initial to Grade 2 book. The format of 10 lessons with five lessons in each, along with a duet and specimen sight reading tests still applies. It's also the same easy layout.

Grades 6 - 8

Example of Grade 7 sight reading taken from the Trinity Sight Reading Grades 6-8 book

This is last of the series of these books, and this is aimed at advanced students who are working through their Grades 6 - 8. Now there's a slight change within this book, due to it being more advanced; and that change is that each lesson now only consists of three sight reading specimens. Also the number of specimen tests has also been reduced to 12 from 20. 

The sight reading exercises within each of the lessons are longer than what they are in the Initial to Grade 2 and the Grades 3 -5 books. They also include some tricky key signatures, and also in a few of the exercises the time signature changes. My little tip would be to study these a little bit more before jumping straight into an exercise or two, and just take your time with them as some of these are hard.

The new Progressive Sight Reading books are brilliant, and I would highly recommend that you get them especially if sight reading isn't your strongest area. As you go throughout the series they provide a range of different technical challenges, as well as giving you hints, tips and music theory along the way. I also like the simplicity of the layout of these books. Also, this range of sight reading books from Trinity College are available for a range of instruments.