ABRSM piano sight-reading
Grade 3 sight-reading: leaving the five-finger nest
Up to eight bars, hands together, keys up to three sharps or flats (A, B♭ and E♭ majors and B minor are new), in 4/4, 3/4, 2/4 or 3/8. The hand may leave the five-finger position. Two-note chords, semiquavers and quaver rests arrive. Half a minute to look.
Checked against the ABRSM 2025-26 syllabus · last reviewed 3 September 2026 · 6 min read
Grade 3 sight-reading parameters
Checked by us against the 2025-26 syllabus
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What changed
Since Grade 2
Grade 3 is the biggest single jump in the table (page 16), and the hand-position cell is why: "outside 5-finger position". For three grades the hand went down and stayed down. Now it can move, and the test can ask it to.
That changes what reading is. Up to Grade 2, a note on the page mapped to a finger that was already in place. From Grade 3 a note can be a sixth away from where your hand is, which means reading the interval and planning the shift before the bar arrives. The half minute gains a new job: find every place the hand has to move and decide how.
Four new keys, and they are not gentle: A major (three sharps), B♭ major (two flats), E♭ major (three flats) and B minor (two sharps, with an A♯ allowed as the occasional accidental). That puts three sharps and three flats in play. The candidate who had one thing to remember at Grade 1 now has up to three, and they have to be remembered while the hand is moving.
Length goes "up to 8" bars. 3/8 arrives, which is not 3/4 written small: it is felt in one, three quavers to the beat. Two-note chords "in either hand" appear, so for the first time the eye reads two notes vertically in the same hand. Note values speed up: the dotted quaver followed by a semiquaver, and "simple semiquaver patterns", which doubles the reading rate in the fast bits. And the quaver rest, half a beat of silence, the rest most likely to be ignored.
Why it is hard: everything above happens at once. A Grade 3 test can be eight bars in E♭ with a two-note chord in the left hand and a shift in the right, and the criteria on page 60 still want "continuity generally maintained" at Pass and "fluent" at Distinction. In our experience, most Grade 3 marks that go missing are left-hand marks, because the left hand got the chord and the shift while the eyes were on the tune.
Everything from Grade 2 still applies. New at Grade 3:
- Length
- 4 bars in 4/4 or 6 bars in 2/4nowup to 8
- Time signatures
- new: 3 / 8
- Keys
- new: A major
- new: B♭ major
- new: E♭ major
- new: B minor
- Hands
- Hands togethernowThe hand moves out of the five-finger position
- Other features
- new: two-note chords, either hand
- new: dotted-quaver-semiquaver and simple semiquaver figures
- new: rests of a quaver
The drill plan
A week that fits a life
The Grade 3 plan is about geography and intervals. The hand has to know where it lives in E♭ before the bar arrives.
The half minute, Grade 3 version. Key (say all three flats). Time (if 3/8, feel it in one). First note in each hand, hands on. Then hunt for shifts: any note more than a fifth from where the hand sits. Put a finger on the page at each one and decide which finger gets there. Last, find the chords and shape the hand for them. This is more to do than any earlier grade, so practise the scan on its own: hand yourself a line, spend twenty seconds, close it, and say where the shifts were.
Monday, Wednesday, Friday: intervals and the wider hand. Deal yourself a few notes below. From Grade 3 the dealer widens beyond the five-finger hand, so the notes it shows can sit outside where your fingers are; read the note, move the hand, play it. Do A major, B♭ major, E♭ major and B minor in rotation, one key per day. Then five minutes of hands-together reading on Grade 1 material, which is now two grades below you and the right dose.
Tuesday, Thursday: left hand alone, and chords. Left hand only on Grade 2 material. Then two-note chord drill: thirds, fifths and sixths in the left hand, reading the shape (two notes on adjacent lines is a third; a line and the next space but one is a fourth) rather than the individual letters. Then a rhythm line with dotted quaver-semiquaver and a quaver rest, on the lid, counting "one-and-a" out loud in practice; the specification says nothing about counting aloud in the exam.
Weekend: scales for geography, then one unseen line. Scales and arpeggios in the four new keys, not for speed, for knowing where the black keys are. Then one eight-bar unseen line, hands together, played once. Stop.
What to ignore. 6/8 and the anacrusis (Grade 4). Chromatic notes beyond the minor-key raised seventh (Grade 4). Four-part chords (Grade 5). Syncopation (Grade 5). Pedal (Grade 6). Keys with four accidentals (Grade 5). If a practice book throws these in, skip them; they are not on your rung.
Deal me a note
What a Grade 3 test can ask of your eyes
The staff below deals notes inside this grade's keys, key signature shown. Press the letter, or click it.
This checks the letter. MidiSlayer checks the note you actually played, in time.
Traps
Where Grade 3 candidates lose marks
- The shift you did not plan. A note a sixth away, the hand not ready, the pulse stops while it gets there. Find every shift in the half minute and know the finger before you start.
- Reading a chord as its top note. Two-note chords are new. Read the shape, play both notes. A single note where a third was written is a wrong note, and a hesitation there is a wrong rhythm too.
- Counting 3/8 as slow 3/4. 3/8 is felt in one, light and moving. Three heavy quaver beats sounds like a different piece.
- Losing the third flat. E♭ major has B♭, E♭ and A♭. The A♭ is the one that goes, usually in the left hand. Say all three.
- Skipping the quaver rest. Half a beat of silence. Not a suggestion.
The honest bit
What MidiSlayer does for Grade 3, and what it does not
At Grade 3, MidiSlayer's Graded Reading deals single notes across every key up to three sharps or flats, treble and bass, with the range widened again now that the table lets the hand move, key signature on the staff, and any note you miss returns more often within a session. It is not an exam simulator: no chords, no shifts to plan, no eight-bar line. Hands-together phrase reading, with the chords and the shifts, lives in Practice with real pieces. Graded Reading is part of the full app, one payment, yours to keep. The free version includes Note Flashcards, the Learn course and the daily game. Download it free.
Free to start. One payment for everything, yours to keep.
Questions
Asked about Grade 3
Everything up to three sharps or three flats: C, G, D, A, F, B♭ and E♭ majors, and A, E, B, D and G minors (page 16). New at Grade 3 are A, B♭ and E♭ majors and B minor.
"Up to 8" (page 16). This is the first grade with a printed length beyond Initial Grade's four or six bars.
Yes. The hand-position cell reads "outside 5-finger position". This is the first grade where the hand may leave a fixed position during the test.
Two-note chords, in either hand. Four-part chords (two notes in each hand at once) wait until Grade 5, and three-part chords in one hand until Grade 8.
Yes, 3/8 is introduced at Grade 3. Feel it in one; it is not a slow 3/4.
About two grades below your pieces for daily reading, so Grade 1 material hands together. Read at the real grade once a week, once through, no repeats.
Up to eight bars; 3/8; A, B♭ and E♭ majors, B minor; hands outside the five-finger position; two-note chords; dotted quaver-semiquaver and simple semiquaver patterns; quaver rests. The diff on this page marks each one.
MidiSlayer is independent of ABRSM and not endorsed by it. ABRSM is a trade mark of The Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, used here to identify the exams these pages describe. Exam facts are taken from the ABRSM Piano Syllabus 2025 & 2026 (© ABRSM), quoted briefly with acknowledgement and otherwise stated in our own words.