One of the first things I teach my students is to read music. Most of them get the hang of it pretty easily and like all music teachers, I have my little tricks to help.
I gave up on "Good Boys" and FACE long ago. I found almost nobody could remember which pneumonic device went where, so I decided to start teaching anchor notes instead. Now I did not come up with this concept at all, but I did come up with the term "anchor notes" because when you understand these two notes, they really do anchor you on the staff.
Here's a simple handout I made for my students that outlines anchor notes:
If this looks like it would be helpful for your students, here's the free PDF download which also includes a second page without the green letters and red lines, just the staff with the keyboard.
All of my students have found the vertical alignment of the keyboard with the grand staff to be incredibly helpful as well. I hope you enjoy this little gem of a handout and can get lots of use for it in your lessons!
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