ABA Style Piano Lessons eBook 1 eBook 1

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Innovative Piano, Inc.By Jeffrey Young

eBook 1ABA style Piano Lessons

Innovative Piano, Inc.www.innovativepiano.com

The Young MethodThe Young Method

Thank you

“No Trees were harmed in the making of this ebook”“No Trees were harmed in the making of this ebook”Produced and Distributed by:

Innovative Piano, Incwww.innovativepiano.com

© 2014 Innovative Piano, Inc. All rights reserved. Excluding data sheets, no part of this ebook may be reproduced in any form

or by electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher except by a reviewer who may quote brief

passages in a review.

A Note to Parents, Therapists and Piano Teachers

Thank you for choosing “The Young Method™” by Innovative Piano, Inc. to help start your student or child on the path to playing the piano. While this method is intended for all students, eBook 1 represents a starting point which is based on many factors. Therefore, based on the player's performance, they are allowed to proceed to more difficult manuals or ones that make the material more clear. The goal of all 'Paths' in this series is to help students begin to play typical sheet music. As they continue using the system, more and more distractions (i.e. illustrations, titles, and teacher directions) will be added to the pages. Please be sure to read through all of the instructions and keep in mind that music is ultimately a form of expression that can lead to a life long skill, bringing joy to performers as well as audiences.

Jeffrey Young President and Founder

Innovative Piano, Inc.

Thank you for your patronage!

Use this code to save 25% off of The Young Method serieseBook 2

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*This ebook represents a step in a series of piano instruction material which is individualized to the student's performance based on several factors. Using this or any other book in The Young Method™ series without properly addressing these factors through Innovative Piano, Inc. can be counterproductive to the student's progress and is not recommended. Any behavioral modification suggested in this manual should be reviewed by the student's behavioral professional before inclusion.

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eBook 1

C E

C E F

D F G

E G

C ED

D F GE

D F GE

DC F GE

DC F GE

Instructions

Progression Page

Reading Music............................................

F FD

Click a song below to jump to the pageClick the of any piece to return herebottom right

Click the of any piece to return to the start of the piecebottom left

Welcome to Book 1 of The Young Method™ piano instruction series! These instructions have been written for the individuals that will be working with and helping the student play the piano. Keeping this in mind, directions are presented so that a teacher or parent with limited knowledge of teaching the piano or of Applied Behavior Analysis will be successful. These eBooks have been created with the understanding that the instructor may have a strong background in ABA and a little piano experience (and vice versa). This is okay, since these materials break down concepts and slowly introduce new piano and ABA style procedures. It is recommended that you do have a history of reinforcement working with the student though. So let 's get started!

First and foremost, your student has to sit appropriately at the piano. Some ways we can accomplish this early on is b y s c h e d u l i n g f u n activities at the piano, like snack time, getting that special toy at the piano, and so on. This can be done before we even start playing anything. It's a great way to help your student associate the piano with cool stuff and fun times. The next step would be to have them simply touch the keys on their own while sitting nicely (that's it, and then end the session.) The third step would be to introduce the book and have them read or point to the notes while sitting appropriately. You would then start teaching, using these materials. This is an example of shaping. Depending on how your student responds to the piano this process can last a session or a few weeks. When you begin shaping a skill, give a direction and then make sure you reinforce any approximation made by the student.

Expectations will be raised later but right now you should heavily reinforce fundamental things, like sitting at the piano, touching the keys nicely and sitting quietly.

The songs in this book focus on keys C through G on the piano. To avoid any undue distractions, only the notes and letters in the song will be displayed on the pages. To further avoid any distractions, your instructions, and any illustrations (i.e. cartoons, colorful designs, dancing Treble Clefs, etc.) are also missing from most of the student's pages. This has been done on purpose, so please leave these pages

otherwise blank for now (I encourage you to have your student add any stickers, art work, etc., to the front or back of the book. I like to give a sticker to my students after every lesson for the front of their book). Later on we will be adding more notes and other distracters. The first time a song is presented to your student

it is important to simply give a direction, such as “Play the song” and not prompt or help them in any way. Doing this will help the student progress quickly and prevent you from having to unnecessarily prompt them, which may end up, inadvertently, slowing them down.

The frequency of practice sessions is completely dependent on your student and how comfortable they are at the piano. In the beginning, regardless of your student's skill level, aim for shorter sessions which allow them to come in contact with their reinforcers more regularly. You can always build up that time later. 3 to 4 of these sessions per week should be fine.

1

Set-up

First we need to set up the piano, so let's find Middle C. Refer to the image below and locate the two black keys in roughly the center of the piano. On an upright or other traditional style piano this will be right under the manufacturer's name. Electric keyboards tend to have middle C a little left of center. To the right of the set of two black keys is a set of three black keys (we will be using them later.) To the immediate left of the two black keys is Middle C.

This is where you will put your first 'soft' piece of Velcro. The piece should be about an inch from the bottom (nearest you) of the key. Continue to place each piece on the subsequent keys, going to the right, until you reach the next higher C (or eight total pieces). Now you're ready for the Key Letters. The piano is set up in alphabetical order. After C is D, E, F and G. We will cover the next letters later. (Please refer to the baseline section below before starting).

For the first song, “Sailing” place two key letters on the keys, C and E. C is to the left of the two black keys and E is to the right (see below).

At the piano

C

Piano Key Letter Middle C

Piano Key Velcro Circles

1”

2

*Refer to the top right of the first page of each song to find out which keys you will be using throughout the piece. These letters at the top of the page also tell you when a new song starts.

Now that the piano keys are set-up, you should focus on helping your student be successful at the piano and follow directions. If you are using a token system, have the token board displayed on the piano within your reach. If at all possible, also have whatever your student is earning at the piano too.

C,E,F

FE

19

C E

Set-up for the song “Sailing”

3

Need Help? Have Comments or Questions?contacts@innovativepiano.com

PromptingAt the Piano

Since this is most likely the first time your student has come in contact with these materials, it is important to have them find the notes errorlessly in the very beginning. In other words, if after your first direction of “Play the song” your student makes some errors, guide them by prompting him/her to find it right away and praise them for it. I find a wrist prompt is well suited for this situation, but if this prompt is not sufficient use a hand-over-hand prompt (literarily placing your index finger over theirs and finding the note with them). If your student doesn't make any mistakes there's no need to prompt, just offer praise and be upbeat. The response you are looking for in this section is having one of the student's fingers pressing the keys. It doesn't matter with what hand he plays, since there is no designation for that at this point.

If your student has trouble playing the notes without hand-over-hand prompts, try using the point and find response. Before they begin playing, prompt them to point to each note, from left to right and then find the corresponding letter on the keys. When praising, use behavior specific praise like “Good pointing!” or “Great Finding!”

Remember, all prompting is done from behind your student. Feel free to bring up a chair or bench directly behind them. After playing really well, coming around and making eye contact while praising your student may add even more significance.

4

ReinforcementThe importance of the use

of reinforcement in this s e r i e s c a n n o t b e overemphasized. We, as

the teacher and/or parent, know that playing the piano should (and will be)

fun, educational, enriching and joyful for them and others. Without a system of reinforcement though, your student's performance will most likely drop off or never materialize at all. You know what your student likes, whether it's snacks, tickles, a movie or a funny face that you make, so try to identify one or two things and make them the “piano” reinforcers. This will help her look forward to the piano. Another point that is very important and somewhat hard to understand is balancing the level of reinforcement. The better your student does or the harder they try, the less reinforcement she needs (still there, but less).

Consequently, if your student is having challenging behavior, they may need a higher rate of reinforcement. Of course, we only want to reinforce positive behavior, so work through the challenging behavior, and when they get on task (i.e. are sitting nicely, stop crying, etc.) up that reinforcement level big time to show the difference. This is only a brief introduction; feel free to study reinforcement and ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) further on your own.

Positive reinforcement is always key! When your student has progressed to playing without hand-over-hand prompts and they make a mistake, stop them, and congratulate them on playing the last note correctly, “Good, you played G”. Then prompt them to play the following note correctly and praise that response. Doing this completely eliminates the “negative response” like “No” or “Whoops” or “No, No, No” (which is even more punishing).

5

With practice, this will come easily to you and really help you focus on correct responses instead of the incorrect ones. If your student is having difficulty and yet is still focused and behaving appropriately praise that behavior and deliver a token.

Lastly, a Token Board works well for some students but feel free to tailor a system for your student. Sometimes, pictures of the reinforcer you are using can be motivating for the student, or possibly a completely different system all together will work better. The rate of token delivery is also subjective, but to start out, a token for each page played might work well. If you find a decrease in appropriate behavior (i.e. crying, getting up, banging on keys, etc.) you should consider increasing the number of tokens to two tokens per page or more.

This will get your student to a break faster and help her realize she's going to get that snack or toy. Remember, you only know if something is reinforcing if the behavior you're looking to increase actually increases after you introduce it. Say a certain candy has always been a big reinforcer for your student, but today there's a lot of inappropriate behavior and this candy is not working. Right now your student is telling you they want something else; maybe a break, playing the piano on their own, going outside, etc. It is our challenge to find that something and get the desired behavior to happen, then deliver that desired reinforcer. Ultimately, I am always following my student, they tell me right away what to give, how much, or how little, when to ignore certain behaviors and when to give them abundant praise.

6

Baseline

Teaching

Data

Data is also extremely important. We are starting your student on a path and their data will let you know how to have you proceed in the best manner. One of the unique aspects of The Young Method™ system is the fact that, depending on your student's performance, you could proceed to an easier book, a more challenging book or another book that reinforces what they learned in this section. Please refer to the Progression Page located right after the data sheets.

Baselines: A baseline data score is the very first data score your student receives on a new skill. Baselines are used to determine where teaching is needed and is also used to assess their skill level. We will be taking two baseline scores while using this book. The first is a baseline measurement is on playing notes. The first time your student sits down at the piano and plays from this manual you will have the keyboard set-up as follows:

That's it! There are no letters on the keys because we want to make sure that your student doesn't already have the skill of matching the correct letter to the correct key. A good rule of thumb for this is if your student doesn't respond correctly after two pages of the first song, mark a minus for all the rest of the pages. Now you can start teaching by adding the appropriate key letters.

This is also true when taking the second baseline measurement by assessing your student’s ability to read musical notation. Do this by asking them read or find the notes on the very last pages of this eBook that have no letter prompts to help them.

7

C ED

Also, remember to use this guide to determine when to move a student on:

Continue using your present book until the student has exhausted the material or 1 month

after instruction begins with that book.

“Exhausting the material” means that the student has met criterion (see the data sheets) or the student's data has not increased, criterion has not been met and further instruction with these material would not seem to be effective. In any case, after 1 month of instruction with each book, the teacher should evaluate the student's progress by averaging all data scores

to determine, objectively, how teaching should proceed. This is a rule of thumb, of course, and if needed, exceptions can be made. For instance, if the teacher realizes that the student's data has been slowly increasing yet is still not meeting criterion levels, it is okay to continue a few weeks at that level to see if they will meet criterion.

8

Data Sheet A(for use with songs)

Student:__________________________________

Date :___________________ Song:_______________________

Book Level:________________ Measurement: Number of notes played correctly

+/-

Date :___________________ Song:_______________________

Book Level:________________ Measurement: Number of notes played correctly

+/-

Date :___________________ Song:_______________________

Book Level:________________ Measurement: Number of notes played correctly

+/-

% _______

Total Correct: ______

Total Notes: ______

% _______

Total Correct: ______

Total Notes: ______

% _______

Total Correct: ______

Total Notes: ______

© 2010 Innovative Piano, Inc.

Data Sheet B Criteria: 2 days at 100%

Student:_________________________________________

Date :_____________Phase: ____________Measurement: Number of notes identified correctly +/-

Date :_____________Phase: ____________Measurement: Number of notes identified correctly +/-

Date :_____________Phase: ____________Measurement: Number of notes identified correctly +/-

% _______

Total Correct: ______

Total Notes: ______

E G B D F

% _______

Total Correct: ______

Total Notes: ______

E G B D F

% _______

Total Correct: ______

Total Notes: ______

E G B D F

© 2010 Innovative Piano, Inc.

Path 1

Path 3

and

and

and

Progression ScaleeBook 1

70% or higher on reading and finding notes

70% or lower on reading notes

70% or lower on finding notes

60% or higher on finding notes

Test 1 Path 2

CE

C, E

EC

E

5

C

E, G

EG

EG

EG

EG

E E

G

C,D,E

D C

D E

C

EC

E

C C

C,E,F

F E

F

F E

F

C

D-G(D,E,F,G)

G F

DE

G

F

F G

F

D,F,G

FD

F FD

F FD

F F

D

G

F FD

D-G

F G

D

D E

F

E D

G

DF

C-G

G

CE

G

CE

D

GE

C CD

Tap Here to return to the

following page

Read

Reading Music

C E or F?

Find

E

B

G

D

F

Treble Clef Line Letters

Every

Good

Boy

Does

Fine

Treble Clef Line Words

E

? ?

B

G

D

F

Every

Good

Boy

Does

Fine

? ?

E

? ?

B

G

D

F

Every

Good

Boy

Does

Fine

? ?

E or C?

D or G?

F or E?

C or D?

D or F?

Gor F?

GF

C or E?

EC

D or G?

GD

Gor E?

GE

C or F?

FC

C E or F?G F or E?

C E or G?D Gor F?

D C or G? C Gor F?

C D E F G

C D E F G

Certificate of Achievement

This certificate is presented to

The Young Method Piano Series

_________________________________

for outstanding completion of

Book 1Teacher’s Signature________________________________

Date_____________________

Piano Instruction Series

www.innovativepiano.com

Path 1

Path 2

Path 3

Workbooks