Verified answer

Well, it certainly helps. I'll give you that. However, if you can learn by ear, it's not required. I taught myself to read music in the early 00s and it certainly improved with my singing and songs that I write but before that I was still able to create music by sound if that makes sense. I have some songs from the late 90s that people who've only known me for the past few years are surprised by because they sound similar to the stuff I was making in the late 00s and some of the best stuff I ever made was around the time I was just reading music. So although it's not required to be good at it, it sure helps a lot.

with singing being able to read music is only useful if you can sing the notes you can read. if you were going to do a singing exam you would need this for sight reading but i suppose otherwise its useless :)

it wouldn't hurt