This paper is drawn from research that sought to extend the ways in which music reading is conceptualised and approached. It investigated the extent to which theory in developing language reading fluency (Kuhn, Schwanenflugel, & Meisinger, 2010) could inform and extend theory in music reading fluency in the context of choral practice in Irish children’s choirs.Whilst language literacy has developed deep theoretical understandings to inform its practical approaches to reading texts (e.g., Ehri, 2005, 2014, 2020; Castles et. a., 2018; Perfetti & Stafura, 2014; Pikulski & Chard, 2001), music reading has retained a largely functional approach informed by a rich heritage of practice rather than by overarching theories (Gudmundsdottir, 2010; Hodges & Nolker, 2011).A mixed methods, qualitative, two-phased approach drawn upon constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2014) and creative research methods (Kara, 2021) was designed to incorporate perspectives of a) the researcher as research instrument investigating theories and ideas from language reading literature with a group of children in a ‘choirlab’ context, b) expert practitioner choral director participants in three in-depth interviews, and indirectly, c) the children who participated in the choirlab.Key concepts from language reading fluency (word recognition, decoding, fluency, and comprehension) were explored in relation to their potential for music reading, initially in the choirlab, and subsequently with the 16 choral directors of children’s choirs from four distinct Irish choral contexts: cathedral choirs, conservatoire-based choirs, community choirs and school choirs.Research findings suggest that developing singers’ skills in ‘basic audiation’ (imagining everyday sounds) can prepare singers for developing skills in audiation (‘hearing’ and understanding musical sounds) and for applying this understanding in music reading, ‘notational audiation’ (Gordon, 2007). Findings indicate that multimodal representation of music in gesture, writing, drawing, movement and construction activities act as a bridge between singers’ aural fluency and fluency in decoding Western Standard Notation (WSN) and ultimately reading fluency. Additionally, findings point to multimodal representations as having potential not only to facilitate understanding of the operating principles of WSN but to deepen singers’ understanding of music.Implications of findings for choral conductors include a) awareness of the focused attention and time required to support development of fluency in audiation, solmization, decoding fluency and full reading fluency b) the potential of representation strategies as a bridge between aural and decoding fluency and for deepening understanding for music reading.