Learning to identify written notes with no delay is extremely important when attempting to sight read. The G clef, from the bottom line to the top, is E, F, G, A, B, C, D, E, F. Find a way to memorize this progression and recall it immediately. Every Farm Girl Acts Bad Cuz Ducks Evaporate Fast. It doesn't have to make sense; it just has to be memorable.
The F clef is the same story as above, but the first line is a G. The order of the notes is G, A, B, C, D, E, F, G. Good Alligator Babies Create Dead Edibles From God. Once again, come up with something that will stick in your mind at least as long as you need the reference points. Eventually, recognizing notes by the line they are on will become second nature.
Now that you have learned to read single notes, practice with a book of melodies. It is important to have a strong single note reading ability before tackling chords. This is because you must identify several notes at once based on their individual locations rather than relying on their spatial relation to each other.
There are two kinds of chords that you will be playing almost constantly. These are the major and minor chords. They are also the most easy to identify. Major chords consist of the Root note, the major third, and the perfect fifth. A C-major chord consists of the notes C (root), E (major third) and G (perfect fifth). Make sure you learn to identify chords based on the notes therein, not by their arrangement on the sheet music. This is important because inversions utilize the same notes of a major chord but in different octaves, creating a different musical effect.
The minor chords work the same way. Minors consist of a root, a minor third, and a perfect fifth. A
C-minor chord is C (root), E flat (minor third), and G (perfect fifth). These also have inversions, so once again it's important to remember to identify chords by reading the notes, not just by how the notes look in relation to each other.
Augmented chords are minor or major chords with note additions. For example, a C-Major 6 is a typical C Major chord, C-E-G, but with an added A note, which is the sixth note in the key of C. These augmented notes can also be inverted for effect.
Just as there are augmented chords, there are also diminished chords. These chords consist of a root, a minor third and a diminished fifth. In C, this looks like C-E flat-G flat. These chords are written as (root note) dim or (root note) followed by the small circle that is typically used as the symbol for degrees of temperature.