Deliberate Practice: Creating Word Experts

As a child, my life was filled with music ⁠— piano lessons on Tuesdays, violin and choir on Thursdays, quartet once a month, and musical theater during the summer. Days without lessons were supposed to be practice days. Getting into a consistent practice routine was difficult, but my violin teacher always had great incentives like earning Legos to build little towers or competing with our friends for a big prize. Of course, the student who won most of the practice competitions grew up to become the most talented violinist in the studio. Sadly that particular student was not me, but I still logged enough practice hours to enjoy playing many of the pieces I dreamed of learning as a child.

Malcolm Gladwell popularized the idea that 10,000 hours of practice is the “magic number for true expertise.” But there was an important qualifier in the original research. To result in expertise, practice must be both consistent and deliberate. Deliberate practice is “at the edge of one’s comfort zone,” has a specific purpose, and includes feedback.

During violin lessons, my teacher would take notes, observing the skills I had mastered and the difficulties I encountered. Then she would set up a practice plan based on those observations. The scales, etudes, and drills that she gave me were never easy, but they never felt impossible either. My teacher would highlight or circle sections in my music that were the most difficult so that I could review those before playing the whole piece. My teacher was setting up deliberate practice for me.

Now, as a teacher myself, I see the impact of consistent, deliberate practice when I measure my students’ progress. Since I’ve started using the Lexercise platform, it has become much easier to set up deliberate practice that pushes just beyond each student’s comfort zone, aligns with what I’m teaching them in sessions, and includes immediate feedback. This type of practice maximizes my students’ practice time and enables us to focus mostly on discussing new concepts in our next session.

From my own experience, I know how hard it is to stay motivated to practice. The newness of any external reward wears off, and it can be difficult to see progress from one day to the next. Part of my job is to make my students’ practice valuable, and another part is to convince them of its value. The impact of a consistent practice routine does not seem very large until it’s viewed in the context of months and years. That’s how I went from Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to virtuosic concertos, and that’s how my students go from ABCs to chapter books.