sight-read

American  

[sahyt-reed] / ˈsaɪtˌrid /

verb (used with or without object)

sight-read, sight-reading

1. to read, play, or sing without previous practice, rehearsal, or study of the material to be treated.

   to sight-read music; to sight-read another language.

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sight-read British  

/ ˈsaɪtˌriːd /

verb

1. to sing or play (music in a printed or written form) without previous preparation

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• sight-reading
  noun
• sight-reader
  noun

Etymology

Origin of sight-read

First recorded in 1900–05

Example Sentences

Phonics is a great way to get kids to sight-read, but whole-language learning in sentences is an important motivating factor.

From Washington Post • Mar. 15, 2023

Luckily, a career detour, a shorter haircut or a new diet don’t define her essence; she still knows how to sight-read without restraint.

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 1, 2022

In the last years of her life, when she had macular degeneration, it was sad because she could never sight-read in that same way that she could when I was a child.

From The New Yorker • Oct. 28, 2019

In “Yesterday Tomorrow,” from 2018, singers sight-read along as a computer gradually, in a different pattern each performance, transforms the score of the Beatles’ “Yesterday” into “Tomorrow,” from the musical “Annie.”

From New York Times • Sep. 25, 2019

They could not help him sight-read a new tune from scratch.

From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall