non-melodies for a non-reader

I  run my own private music studio a few evenings a week in my home. I have one saxophone student who was referred to me because she was having trouble reading music. She was learning all of her band parts by watching the fingers of the player sitting next to her, or just by trial and error and playing by ear. After numerous attempted remedies by the band teacher, he suggested that she get private tutoring.

I decided right after meeting her and watching him play for the first time that this was going to be a challenge. All of her music is easily recognizable and easily learned by ear. The method book wasn’t much good because it, too, was full of familiar tunes.

So. I went there. I wrote out melodies that were completely un-melodic. I know it’s so non-musical and so non-meaningful, but it’s working. We started out by only using the notes in the spaces on the treble clef staff. That Major 7th chord just doesn’t sound right to her, so as she is playing the exercises, she cannot do it by ear. She is forced to concentrate and READ. We’ve also done the same thing with the lines on the treble clef staff.

She’s getting quicker at reading the notes, and we’ve not gone to reading a mixture of line notes and space notes. She doesn’t need to write in the names of the notes anymore (a habit I quickly ended for her). She is still a bit slow at reading the notes, but she is definitely progressing. I’m moving her back into the method book now for some sight reading. I’ve also got her working on the note trainer at www.musictheory.net

Any other suggestions?