For anyone who might be interested, here is a page from the RCM Four Star sight reading book. The first book, level Prep A, has 12 sets of exercises. Each set is further divided to 5 days, perfect for one week. At this level it's simple enough to take 10 minutes or less.
I do make the rhythm section a little harder for myself, by doing:
- foot tap and speak the beat, clap the rhythm
- left hand clap the beat on my thigh, right hand clap the rhythm; switch hands and repeat
- left hand play a bass note of the beat, right hand play a note in the rhythm; switch hands and repeat
- left hand play a chord (blocked then broken), right hand play a note in the rhythm; switch hands and repeat
I think in a previous post I said my strength is in rhythm. Still, doing the above is HARD. Although my natural sense of rhythm is not bad, tapping while counting out loud and having both hands doing different things does not come easy. I do see improvement hand independence with practice. I also sense my rhythm accuracy become more solid when I count in subdivides.
If you look closely at #4 in Day2, you'll see the exercise is designed to be fun, too. Making up lyric or tune to the beat is so much fun I laugh to myself afterwards.
