First of all, learning to read music is mostly possible for those students who are also able to learn to read (language). This is true for many children who are 6 or 7 years old, some younger, some older. The following thoughts apply therefore only for students who have reached this stage. For younger students and for some students older than approximately 11 years of age different principles apply.
Many piano teachers think that improvising, reading chords or playing by ear (i.e. free piano playing) is more important than playing from written music. These two methods are regarded as separate ways of teaching – thinking that the students playing freely will lose the motivation to learn to read music while the others who read music will not get the opportunity to be creative and play freely. Experience shows that these thoughts are true in a way. Therefore both methods should be taught equally from the start (ages 6+).
Many think that it is easier for a beginner student to play freely or by ear rather than struggle to learn to read music. These people overlook a very important factor. While playing freely/by ear the student can watch the keyboard all the time and check the position of the fingers which prevents him from developing an awareness of where to place his fingers without looking at the keys (keyboard awareness). When playing from music it is not always possible to look at the keys as the student has to read what is written and in so doing is able is guided to develop keyboard awareness skills. It is an important skill, also when playing freely. Without this skill a feeling of losing control can occur if the student has to look away from the keys in order to read the music.
Haptic orientation – a sensing through touch – occurs at a more advanced level, i.e. when the left hand is playing an accompaniment with many jumps and the right hand has to play largely by feeling its way around. Also, when rapid passages are played, the eyes definitely must (and sometimes only can) aim at some single keys, while the actual control must be transferred to the sensory skills of the hands. These and many other difficulties can arise while playing from memory as well. It could therefore be arguably concluded that the lack of a distinct skill in haptic orientation will always result in many random errors and wrongly played keys, no matter if one plays the piano freely, by reading music or from memory.
Another reason why students are not looking at the music is often found, when they are taught right from the beginning to read the regular music notation system, which unfortunately can not be read intuitively. Most students learn thereby subconsciously that the music sheet does not contain much usable information anyway and it therefore does not make any sense to look at the music at all. To avoid that this negative attitude emerges, the PianoSeesaw tone symbols were developed. These are immediately understandable, and therefore the above described effect is prevented.
(Excerpt from teachers guide for the PianoSeesaw method)