Compose sheet music and become a better sight reader

I remember an assignment I had many years ago writing music to my first musical. It made me aware of many notational problems I had not taken the time to solve for myself before. When I started to play my piano sheet music again I was astonished when realizing it was much easier for me to sight read complicated piano scores.

The reason for this I concluded must have been my concentrated effort to notate my own piano music. The process to play something with my fingers and and then try to notate the music on manuscript paper was so to speak a reversed sight reading exercise.

Of course you can apply this principle of learning to read sheet music by writing your own sheet music to any instrument!