This is a collection of recommendations found in this forum, to have it all in one place:

Books (paper / digital)

note: The Classics to Moderns book is ordered chronologically not by difficulty.

Sophia
Library of Easy Piano Classics
Library of Easy Piano Classics 2
I find the pieces in part 2 a little less hard, overall.

BartK I like using graded books that have many pieces per level. If you're in North America you can order the RCM repertoire and etudes books. The whole series from Preparatory to level 10 has over 500 pieces!

I found list books on amazon.com. And I have a couple of questions:

  • Maybe you can tell something about what the Prep A/B level mean, compared to Level 1-X?
  • And would you recommend the Repertoire or the Etudes to start with?
  • I also found a "Four Start Sight reading and Ear Tests" series. Do you have experience with those books, too?

C6R0A - Celebration Series Sixth Edition - Piano Repertoire Level Prep A
C6R0B - Celebration Series Sixth Edition - Piano Repertoire Level Prep B
C6R01 - Celebration Series Sixth Edition - Piano Repertoire Level 1
C6R02 - Celebration Series Sixth Edition - Piano Repertoire Level 2
C6R03 - Celebration Series Sixth Edition - Piano Repertoire Level 3
C6R04 - Celebration Series Sixth Edition - Piano Repertoire Level 4
C6R05 - Celebration Series Sixth Edition - Piano Repertoire Level 5
C6R06 - Celebration Series Sixth Edition - Piano Repertoire Level 6
C6R07 - Celebration Series Sixth Edition - Piano Repertoire Level 7
C6R08 - Celebration Series Sixth Edition - Piano Repertoire Level 8
C6R09 - Celebration Series Sixth Edition - Piano Repertoire Level 9
C6R10 - Celebration Series Sixth Edition - Piano Repertoire Level 10

C6E01 - Celebration Series Sixth Edition - Piano Etudes Level 1
C6E02 - Celebration Series Sixth Edition - Piano Etudes Level 2
C6E03 - Celebration Series Sixth Edition - Piano Etudes Level 3
C6E04 - Celebration Series Sixth Edition - Piano Etudes Level 4
C6E05 - Celebration Series Sixth Edition - Piano Etudes Level 5
C6E06 - Celebration Series Sixth Edition - Piano Etudes Level 6
C6E07 - Celebration Series Sixth Edition - Piano Etudes Level 7
C6E08 - Celebration Series Sixth Edition - Piano Etudes Level 8
C6E09 - Celebration Series Sixth Edition - Piano Etudes Level 9
C6E10 - Celebration Series Sixth Edition - Piano Etudes Level 10

4S0A - Royal Conservatory Four Star Sight Reading and Ear Tests Level Prep A Book 2015 Edition
4S0B - Royal Conservatory Four Star Sight Reading and Ear Tests Level Prep B Book 2015 Edition
4S01 - Royal Conservatory Four Star Sight Reading and Ear Tests Level 1 Book 2015 Edition
4S02 - Royal Conservatory Four Star Sight Reading and Ear Tests Level 2 Book 2015 Edition
4S03 - Royal Conservatory Four Star Sight Reading and Ear Tests Level 3 Book 2015 Edition
4S04 - Royal Conservatory Four Star Sight Reading and Ear Tests Level 4 Book 2015 Edition
4S05 - Royal Conservatory Four Star Sight Reading and Ear Tests Level 5 Book 2015 Edition
4S06 - Royal Conservatory Four Star Sight Reading and Ear Tests Level 6 Book 2015 Edition
4S07 - Royal Conservatory Four Star Sight Reading and Ear Tests Level 7 Book 2015 Edition
4S08 - Royal Conservatory Four Star Sight Reading and Ear Tests Level 8 Book 2015 Edition
4S09 - Royal Conservatory Four Star Sight Reading and Ear Tests Level 9 Book 2015 Edition
4S010 - Royal Conservatory Four Star Sight Reading and Ear Tests Level 10 Book 2015 Edition

plop_symphony I'm using a couple of books in addition to the easiest repertoire I can find for sight reading: Paul Harris's "Improve Your Sight-Reading!" and Keith Snell/Diane Hidy's "Sight Reading" (Kjos).

GP700 - Sight Reading - Diane Hidy - Preparatory Level
GP701 - Sight Reading - Diane Hidy - Level 1
GP702 - Sight Reading - Diane Hidy - Level 2
GP703 - Sight Reading - Diane Hidy - Level 3
GP704 - Sight Reading - Diane Hidy - Level 4

The following list is available as Kindle and paperback (by Paul Harris)
Improve your sight-reading! Piano Initial Grade
Improve Your Sight-Reading! Piano, Pre-Grade 1
Improve Your Sight-Reading! Piano Grade 1
Improve your sight-reading! Piano Grade 2
Improve your sight-reading! Piano Grade 3
Improve your sight-reading! Piano Grade 4
Improve your sight-reading! Piano Grade 5
Improve your sight-reading! Piano Grade 6
Improve your sight-reading! Piano Grade 7
Improve your sight-reading! Piano Grade 8

Gooseberry WieWaldi There is also a series of complementary books - Improve Your Sight-Reading! A Piece a Week, by the same author (Paul Harris). The books are also graded from Grade 1 to Grade 8, and available for Kindle and as print books. I think they are a great addition to the original learning series.

Improve your sight-reading! A piece a week Piano Initial Grade
Improve Your Sight-Reading! A Piece a Week -- Piano, Level 1
Improve Your Sight-Reading! A Piece a Week -- Piano, Level 2
Improve Your Sight-Reading! A Piece a Week -- Piano, Level 3
Improve Your Sight-Reading! A Piece a Week -- Piano, Level 4
[Improve Your Sight-Reading! A Piece a Week -- Piano, Level 5
Improve Your Sight-Reading! A Piece a Week -- Piano, Level 6
Improve your sight-reading! A piece a week--Piano Levels 7-8

Online content (free)

BicBic Then check some of the pieces at each level on IMSLP to get a bit of an idea of the difficulty level of the RCM rep books

imslp-download: Sight reading Exercises (3 books) - C.Schäfer
imslp-download: PALMER'S Graded Studies - Reading Music at Sight
imslp-download: Pieces for sight Reading - Arthus Somervell

Sophia I found two delightful sources to start from scratch. I'm very fond of the John Thompson method, and his primer series is no exception:
Easiest Piano Course Part 1 (I haven't found any free sources for the other parts)
Easiest Classics (pdf-download)

ranjit I found these pieces useful for initial sight reading progress.
https://gmajormusictheory.org/

Online-Orgelbuch Sätze

This is a new thread in addition to The Sight Reading Thread

where you can find a lot of tips and tricks and sheet music sources about sight-reading, I want to start a progress thread, where we learners can upload some videos of the progress.
You can read tons of pages, threads and tips about sight-reading. You can join tutorials and courses, but the most important thing is this:

BartK The best advice is still just do it.

And here we go, just upload your progress. And maybe if you still feel like a toddler, compare to yourself from the past and maybe this keeps you motivated to continue.

My very first steps, but it is still way better than on day one. Unbelievable, is it?

                        WieWaldi changed the title to The Sight Reading Progress Thread .

                        That's a great idea WieWaldi. I never record my sight reading though I wish I would. I would be able to see my progress after years. Right now it's just in my (hazy) memory.

                        It is a beginning but remember, it's not just notes on the scale, there are dynamics too.

                        When I sight read something for the first time, it sounds just like that 🙂 (Ok let's be honest here, much worse in most cases). I definitely don't add dynamics or rhythm etc.

                        Once I feel brave enough, I might add my own "first read" video... perhaps the piece that @rogerch mentioned in the other thread, the one from the "Easy Classics" book. I have deliberately not looked at it yet just so that I can use it for this type of exercise!

                          Pallas

                          The goal of sight reading is to be able to play the score as written. Omitting the written dynamics doesn't achieve that goal nor is it progress toward that goal.

                          Otherwise you could play one handed, or leave out mordents/trills and so on, and say you've accomplished the goal.

                          I'm also not being overly harsh. If the goal is to play the entire score as written then one must attempt to play the entire score, even if poorly. Saying so isn't criticism, it's a critique. Criticism would be to judge the playing skill as inadequate or unacceptable. Which is something I did not do.

                            Sophia When I sight read something for the first time, it sounds just like that 🙂 (Ok let's be honest here, much worse in most cases). I definitely don't add dynamics or rhythm etc.

                            Emphasis mine but I think this is a serious mistake that beginners make.

                            So, I didn't point it out in my previous response because, like Pallas, I think this should be a progress and encouragement thread, but leaving out rhythm is the wrong thing to do. Rhythm is the most important aspect. It's more important to get the rhythm right than to get the notes right. This is why I suggested clapping out the rhythm with a metronome in the other thread. Once you have the rhythm then you can add the notes, not the other way around.

                            Okay, I'll go back to lurking and encouraging now. 🙂

                                I always value your wise advice Bart, please do more than lurk when you have some valuable advice to add 🥰

                                @Pallas @WieWaldi I think it’s great that you are working on sight reading! As time passes you will get better at notes, rhythm, dynamics, etc.

                                You have taken the critical first step which is to start! Thanks for sharing and I look forward to your progress!

                                I think having this video record will be useful and encouraging. I’ve been working on sight reading for almost a year and I feel like I have made good progress but I have no recordings to check. You have inspired me to make some recordings, maybe monthly? I’m not sure I will be brave enough to share them but at least it will help me see my progress…

                                I like the idea! I might post my own sight reading progress. I'm pretty bad at sight reading -- a year ago it was basically at zero, but now I can mostly read through very easy pieces. It's something that I really need to find a way to get up to speed quickly.

                                BartK It's more important to get the rhythm right than to get the notes right.

                                Sorry, here I have to disagree (and it is hard as a total beginner to disagree with an advanced player like Bart). At least I disagree to a certain degree, because it depends:
                                If you are generally good at getting a rhythm into your fingers, but you always struggle to hit the right notes, then getting the notes right is the more important practice goal.
                                There are reasons to tell rhythm is more important, and there are reasons to tell notes are more important. I am in the notes-are-more-important camp (at least as long I count myself a beginner, who hit wrong notes too often). If you make a wrong note, so wrong that it is out of harmony (e.g. missing a sharp), even a blind person can hear it. But if you make a note too long or too short or another rhythm mistake, some people may think it was intended. They won't recognize this as a mistake so easily.
                                On the other hand, if you are playing in a band with other people, rhythm mistakes are truly fatal - more fatal than a wrong note here or there. But this is the mindset of intermediates and above. 😁

                                  Pallas Well done! You made the very first step, the most important step of all. And if you add more of those little steps every day, you will make a lot of progress within a year. You should be proud and give yourself some nice claps on the shoulder.

                                  Keep on the sight-reading practice. Record yourself in a few days again, I am sure you will see quite some progress. The long pause in the beginning, with placing the right fingers on the right keys, do some preparation, you recorded everything 👍. I like

                                    Agreed. I find that the important thing is to be at least somewhat "musical". For instance, you might speed up or slow down while still feeling the musical line. Or you might stop and collect your thoughts if it's going out of control.

                                    That said, Bart had a really good experience sight reading with the metronome. So it might work as well. It depends on where you are and how you do it. For me, it felt like I was working a typewriter when I tried it a year ago, and just didn't work somehow because I felt disengaged from the language of the music.

                                    Pallas I use VideoPad. It is not the most professional tool, but it is fairly cheap and quite easy to learn. I would say, it is very intuitive.
                                    If you are more interested in this, you should start a dedicated video editing thread. There are lots of different opinions and many other tools that work as well. Maybe some are even total for free?

                                      I use DaVinci Resolve, which has a pretty robust editing feature. I recently experimented a little with captions and other effects, but obviously I don't have the talent and patience for it that WieWaldi has 🙂 But if you're still looking for something, then I can highly recommend it as well.

                                      I think one needs to try for both the notes and the rhythm when practicing sightreading. Notes and rhythm are the foundation stones of music. The other markings in a score may be from the composer or they may be editorial, but the notes and the rhythm are from the composer. I made the mistake of making rhythm the poor cousin of the notes, and had to spend a long time fixing that bad habit.

                                      Rhythm or notes: what is more important?

                                      I'll answer this question first from the point of view of a professional sight-reader. If you're accompanying an opera rehearsal, or playing chamber music, both are equally important. If you play the right rhythms, but the wrong melody and harmonies, the piece will be unrecognisable. Ditto if the melody is correct, but the rhythm is random.

                                      But that's not all. Let's say you have a passage marked pp, vivace and all in staccato. If you play every single note right, with the correct rhythms, but you play ff, lento and with lots of pedal, it will be a disaster.

                                      So, in order to be a good pro sight-reader, do you need to get everything exactly right straightaway? No! You scan the music, get a good idea of how it should sound, and concentrate on the essentials. You may leave out a load of notes, or get some details of the rhythm wrong, but you produce something recognisable, you stay together with your colleagues and you make music.

                                      That's the goal to aim for in advanced sight-reading, but if you're near the beginning of your sight-reading journey, it will be too much for you to try to assimilate everything at once. Quite possibly your brain will freeze up, and you will achieve nothing.

                                      What should you do? Work on each element separately first:

                                      If you want to work on rhythm, just clap or tap the rhythms.
                                      If you want to work on harmony, find a piece with a lot of chords and enjoy the progression of one chord to the next. To hell with the rhythm!
                                      If your left hand is weak in sight-reading, read just the left hand part. You can also find simple pieces for left hand alone, for example here.
                                      And so on...

                                      Give it time. As you become more fluent in each element, it will become easier to put them together.

                                      Finally, a big bravo for anybody who has the courage to record their sight-reading and post it for all to see and hear. You have my undying admiration!

                                        Thanks so much for that @MRC - it makes perfect sense to me. I think most who posted here are still at the "how do I spell that note again?" stage. I know I am 😁 It's simply impossible to get everything right at first glance... but it's getting less horribly difficult all the time so I guess there is hope for us still 😅