This is probably the most persistent myth about the Suzuki method, and I encounter it on a regular basis. I recently was in a practice session with a current student and the mom mentioned that when she was doing research into the Suzuki method someone told her Suzuki kids never learn to read music. "But it looks like we're headed in the direction of reading music," she said. My reply was, all my students, and all of the students of all my colleagues, read music. We just don't start out doing it that way.
Think of it like this: When your child was learning to talk, first he babbled and learned how to make various noises with his mouth. Then he started combining those noises into syllables. Then the syllables became words, which became sentences. Some of my students are still too young to read, but reading comes many years later. Imagine how difficult it would have been if, upon uttering his first word, you put a book in front of your 10 month old and said, "OK, we're going to learn to read now. Once you learn how to read the word, then you can say it." Now, I know there are new baby reading programs, but you get what I'm saying.
Ok, now imagine you already know how to read a book. You've discovered "Sweatin' to the Oldies, Kindle edition". How successful do you think you'll be learning the moves? I think we'd all rather dance alongside Richard Simmons than read about him. Then, once you've mastered all the fancy dance moves on the video, you can read a book about advanced ae
The eyes are very powerful. Once we're looking at something, our other senses tend to take a backseat. Suzuki teachers typically like to set up their students first, make sure they can play well, and only when the student gets to the point where they're not having to consciously think about technique does the teacher introduce reading. If the technique becomes automatic, when the student is reading music there's less chance that the beautiful bow hold they've been working on is going to disappear forever. This process takes a different amount of time for each student. In my own studio, the younger students take longer to read (some of them aren't reading books yet, so that makes sense anyway) and the older ones read faster.
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