When my son approached five, I sat him at the piano. His fingers were too small, and too rigid. OK, I said, you are not ready. We will try again. Few months passed by and we tried again, and nothing had changed, so I waited for another opportunity and another and another until one day when I said, OK we will start gently now. Initially, I was discouraged and thought to myself, it is going to take us years to get through one song. But no, it took us one week of 10 minutes each day to go through the song. During this week, after just a few consecutive days, I saw how something clicked, some connection was made in his brain. He was able to not only play and memorize, but he learned to read the notes from the book. I say learned because he taught himself to play a different song by following the notes. Piano at the moment is joy, he wants to try it, he has discovered something he couldn't do before and now is all excited about it. I am very happy.
Why I am writing this? To basically confirm that yes, kids are ready when they are ready. No reason to push them based on some expectations. Adults are ready when they are ready, there is no reason to push them. What I wanted was for my kids to find the joy. They did. I didn't want them to be grand musicians. I wanted them to be happy about music, to love to play the piano, to love the sound they discover and the abilities they acquire which will remain with them for the rest of their lives.
Here is an article which promotes this same tactic for reading and other academic disciplines. What is the rush, I ask. Consistency and persistence, positive attitude and enthusiasm will carry you further than artificial efforts and ambitions.
Here is the book we use:
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