Guitarists are bad at sight reading

I have played the classical guitar for about 19 years, though I haven't had formal training for the latter 11 years. Through out the whole of my personal and professional training I was taught to sight read, but I never did very well. In fact I panic when I see special notation that means I have to sight read beyond the first position!

I soon discovered that the majority of classical guitarists I encountered couldn't read music very well either, and I came to the conclusion that it must be too difficult. And, after all, guitarists don't need to sight read often because they aren't in orchestras.

I read a superb article, not so long ago, about guitarists being bad site readers - but I fail to find it using Google. Despite that, I have found many articles agreeing with my observation, including one which is an interview with John Williams (classical guitarist):
http://www.guitarteacher.com.au/johnwilliams.htm

So, why aren't we guitarists good sight readers? Well, I suggest that if you ask any guitarist where various notes are in first position they will be able to quickly find all variations A to G, and most sharpened/flattened notes too! Ask them to name all the notes on the 10th fret starting from 6th to 1st strings and you'll find most, including me, floundering and working out from 5th and 7th frets!

It's not that sight reading is any more difficult on the guitar than the piano, flute or violin, it's that we don't know our instrument! We are lazy! Imagine finding a carpenter (pro or hobbyist) of 19 years experience and they don't know what their tools are called or how they use them - I'd be aghast! So why, until now, am I not so shocked at my lack of knowledge of the guitar?

I have decided this is to change, and I am doing something about it! This is my plan:

• Learn where all the E notes are on my guitar fret board up to the 14th fret
• Picture each note on the staff, e.g. Open 6th string is in the space below the third ledger line below the stave
• Practice finding these notes on the guitar at the same time imagining the notes on the stave
• For each fret, starting from the open and 1st frets up to fret 14, search for all the E notes and picture their position on the stave
• When confident, repeat with other notes, counting 3 notes up each time. Instead of learninrg A, B, C use E, A, D, G, C, F then E

So far I have worked on E and A and I will continue with the subsequent notes over the next few weeks. I will report back on any improvement!