Reading: How to Teach It :: CHAPTER III. LEARNING TO READ.

CHAPTER III. LEARNING TO READ.

The problem of teaching would be solved could the teacher know how her well-devised plan of action really affects her pupil. Patiently and persistently she follows her foreordained method, but who can know the critical moment when the mind opens to take in the new idea, and to delight in the consciousness of growth? Who can name or describe the Open Sesame that unlocks the world of books to the child?

A clear light is thrown upon our common problem by the charming description of one child’s experience. Hugh Miller, in his “Schools and Schoolmasters,” tells us how he learned to read, or, rather, learned to love reading. We quote at length:—

I had been sent, previous to my father’s death, to a dame’s school, where I was taught to pronounce my letters to such effect in the old Scottish mode, that still, when I attempt spelling a word aloud, which is not often,—for I find the process a perilous one,—the aa’s, and ee’s, and uh’s, and rau’s, return upon me, and I have to translate them, with no little hesitation, as I go along, into the more modish sounds. A knowledge of the letters themselves I had already acquired by studying the signposts of the place,—rare works of art, that excited my utmost admiration, with jugs, and glasses, and bottles, and ships, and loaves of bread upon them; all of which could, as the artist intended, be actually recognized. During my sixth year, I spelt my way, under the dame, through the Shorter Catechism, the Proverbs, and the New Testament, and then entered upon her highest form, as a member of the Bible Class; but all the while, the process of acquiring learning had been a dark one, which I slowly mastered, in humble confidence in the awful wisdom of the schoolmistress, not knowing whither it tended,—when at once my mind awoke to the meaning of that most delightful of all narratives, the story of Joseph. Was there ever such a discovery made before! I actually found out for myself, that the art of reading is the art of finding stories in books, and from that moment reading became one of the most delightful of my amusements. I began by getting into a corner at the dismissal of the school, and there conning over to myself the new-found story of Joseph; nor did one perusal serve; the other Scripture stories followed,—in especial, the story of Samson and the Philistines, of David and Goliath, of the prophets Elijah and Elisha; and after that came the New Testament stories and parables. Assisted by my uncles, I began to collect a library in a box of birch-bark about nine inches square, which I found quite large enough to contain a great many immortal works,—“Jack the Giant-Killer,” and “Jack and the Bean-Stalk,” and the “Yellow Dwarf,” and “Blue Beard,” and “Sindbad the Sailor,” and “Beauty and the Beast,” and “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp,” with several others of resembling character.

Those intolerable nuisances, the useful-knowledge books, had not yet arisen, like tenebrious stars, on the educational horizon, to darken the world, and shed their blighting influence on the opening intellect of the “youthhood”; and so, from my rudimental books—books that made themselves truly such by their thorough assimilation with the rudimental mind—I passed on, without being conscious of break or line of division, to books on which the learned are content to write commentaries and dissertations, but which I found to be quite as nice children’s books as any of the others. Old Homer wrote admirably for little folk, especially in the “Odyssey”; a copy of which, in the only true translation extant,—for, judging from its surpassing interest and the wrath of critics, such I hold that of Pope to be,—I found in the house of a neighbor. Next came the “Iliad”; not, however, in a complete copy, but represented by four of the six volumes of Bernard Lintot. With what power, and at how early an age, true genius impresses! I saw, even at this immature period, that no writer could cast a javelin with half the force of Homer. The missiles went whizzing athwart his pages; and I could see the momentary gleam of the steel, ere it buried itself deep in brass and bull-hide. I next succeeded in discovering for myself a child’s book, of not less interest than even the “Iliad,” which might, I was told, be read on Sabbaths, in a magnificent old edition of “Pilgrim’s Progress,” printed on coarse, whity-brown paper, and charged with numerous woodcuts, each of which occupied an entire page, that, on principles of economy, bore letterpress on the other side. And such delightful prints as these were! It must have been some such volume that sat for its portrait to Wordsworth, and which he so exquisitely describes as

“Profuse in garniture of wooden cuts,

Strange and uncouth; dire faces, figures dire,

Sharp-kneed, sharp-elbowed, and lean-ankled, too,

With long and ghastly shanks,—forms which, once seen,

Could never be forgotten.”

In process of time I had devoured, besides these genial works, “Robinson Crusoe,” “Gulliver’s Travels,” “Ambrose on Angels,” the judgment chapter in Howie’s “Scotch Worthies,” Byron’s “Narrative,” and the “Adventures of Philip Quarll,” with a good many other adventures and voyages, real and fictitious, part of a very miscellaneous collection of books made by my father. It was a melancholy little library to which I had fallen heir. Most of the missing volumes had been with the master aboard the vessel when he perished. Of an early edition of Cook’s “Voyages,” all the volumes were now absent save the first; and a very tantalizing romance in four volumes, Mrs. Ratcliff’s “Mysteries of Udolpho,” was represented by only the earlier two. Small as the collection was, it contained some rare books,—among the rest, a curious little volume entitled, “The Miracles of Nature and Art,” to which we find Dr. Johnson referring, in one of the dialogues chronicled by Boswell, as scarce even in his day, and which had been published, he said, some time in the seventeenth century by a bookseller whose shop hung perched on Old London Bridge, between sky and water. It contained, too, the only copy I ever saw of the “Memoirs of a Protestant condemned to the Galleys of France for his Religion,”—a work interesting from the circumstance that, though it bore another name on its title-page, it had been translated from the French for a few guineas by poor Goldsmith in his days of obscure literary drudgery, and exhibited the peculiar excellences of his style. The collection boasted, beside, of a very curious old book, illustrated by very uncouth plates, that detailed the perils and sufferings of an English sailor who had spent his best years of life as a slave in Morocco. It had its volumes of sound theology, too, and of stiff controversy,—Flavel’s “Works,” and Henry’s “Commentary,” and Hutchinson on the “Lesser Prophets,” and a very old treatise on the “Revelation,” with the title-page away, and blind Jameson’s volume on the “Hierarchy,” with first editions of “Naphthali,” “The Cloud of Witnesses,” and “The Hind let Loose.” But with these solid authors I did not venture to grapple until long after this time. Of the works of fact and incident which it contained, those of the voyagers were my especial favorites. I perused with avidity the voyages of Anson, Drake, Raleigh, Dampier, and Captain Woods Rogers, and my mind became so filled with conceptions of what was to be seen and done in foreign parts, that I wished myself big enough to be a sailor, that I might go and see coral islands and burning mountains, and hunt wild beasts and fight battles.

These reminiscences are most suggestive. Do they not find a parallel in our memory of our childhood conquest of the art of reading?

Before planning her lessons in reading, the teacher will do well to review her own experience in reading, or to scan the difficulties which she has encountered in teaching other classes. A brief analysis of her experiences, both as a pupil and as a teacher, will reveal distinct lines of achievement in learning to read. These are illustrated in any act of reading.

To read,—that is, to get the meaning of these lines; or, if one reads aloud, to get and to give the meaning. One who truly reads “Snow-Bound” learns to see the scenes which Whittier so beautifully describes; to see them as he saw them, with tender affection, and to interpret the deeper meaning of the lines of “homely toil and destiny obscure.”

Manifestly this involves much. On the surface, and first attracting the attention of the teacher, appears the obvious necessity of knowing the words at sight. Familiarity with the forms of the words used is indispensable to reading. This involves knowing the sounds of the words, while the power to pronounce new words readily calls for knowledge of the laws of English pronunciation.

In the minds of too many teachers of little children, such mastery of word pronunciation is held as reading. But this is a grievous error, which leads to narrow and mechanical work, and obscures the high purpose of real reading. Reference to the definition of reading, and a study of the selection from “Snow-Bound,” will show us the proper value of this achievement and its relation to true reading. The words are the vehicle of thought, a means to an end. Their mastery is indispensable to reading, but the reader must compass, not the single word-speaking, but the meaning of the related words which express the author’s thought. Knowledge of the meaning of the words used, and especially the meaning of the words as Whittier uses them, is necessary to a clear understanding of the poem. The reader who would understand the poem must know something of farm life—the sty and the corncrib, the garden wall, the wellcurb, the sweep, and the other accessories of the farm which Whittier names or describes. Plainly, too, his knowledge must extend further—to a Chinese roof, and Pisa’s leaning miracle. To such knowledge, observation of common life must minister, coupled with the study of books and pictures. In other words, the reader interprets Whittier’s “Snow-Bound” by virtue of his own experience, reËnforced by the experience of others as written down in books, or pictured with brush or pen. To the formal word-mastery, then, must be added study of the meaning of new words, or recalling such experience as explains the old. The content, as well as the form, of the word must be studied.

Added to such study, is the general training which gives us power to picture the unknown, interpreting a new scene through its relation to our old experience. The ready and trained imagination easily pictures the scene which the words conjure before the mind—makes real the homestead, snowbound and comfortfilled. Reading may be so taught as to develop this power, which takes hold on things unseen. No careful teacher omits such training.

Here, then, are different phases of teaching reading: mastery of the words as to form and sound; explanation of the meaning of new words, through observation or reading; lessons which tend to develop power of imagination.

The young child who leaves his home and his play to enter upon the life of the school-room finds a new world awaiting him, with manifold new experiences. Hitherto he has romped and rambled to his heart’s content. All his friends and playmates have in turn been his teachers, albeit theirs has been an unconscious tuition. His lessons have been in the line of his desires, or suggested by his natural environment. Longfellow pictures the little Hiawatha in the arms of his first teacher, the loving old Nokomis:

“At the door on summer evenings

Sat the little Hiawatha,

Heard the whispering of the pine-trees,

Heard the lapping of the water—

Sounds of music, words of wonder;—

Saw the moon rise from the water,

Rippling, rounding from the water,

Saw the flecks and shadows on it,

Whispered, ‘What is that, Nokomis?’

And the good Nokomis answered—”

…

The moon, the rainbow in the heaven, the Milky Way, the firefly, the owl and owlet, the beaver, the rabbit, the squirrel—these saluted the baby boy, and awakened his interest. “What is that?” he cried, with eager question. “And the good Nokomis answered.” The little Hiawatha “learned of every bird its language.” He was taught, not by old Nokomis alone, but by bird and beast, flower and field.

So with every child who enters the school-room upon that fateful first Monday in September. He brings with him, not an empty head, but a mind stored with the memories of varied experiences. Just as the little Hiawatha gazed, pondered, questioned, learned—so this child has seen, has heard, has questioned, has thought, has acted. What he brings to school, who can tell? What has he seen and heard? What has he liked and desired? What has he questioned and learned? How little we know of this unwritten history! And yet it determines the net result of all our teaching. For nothing which we attempt to teach finds lodgment in the child mind unless it is linked with some past experience and awakens actual interest. Much of our reiterated instruction falls upon deaf ears, fails utterly to awaken the dormant interest, because it is ill chosen. We must know something about the life of the children before we can wisely teach them.

The thoughtful teacher remembers this truth and directs her work accordingly. Instead of rushing with headlong zeal into the routine of reading, writing, and number—under the impulsion of the Course of Study, and the memory of classes which failed to “pass”—she makes haste slowly, and devotes the first days of the term to lessons which help to reveal the experience of the children. Observation of and talks about common things; conversations which lead the children to tell what they can do, or like to do; story telling; picture drawing;—these afford opportunity for expression, and serve to show the teacher something of her pupils’ attainments, and the line of their interests as well. Meanwhile, they are becoming accustomed to the school-room routine, and so emerge from the period in which they gazed, dumb and dazed, at the many marvels with which this new school world is crowded. They come to know the teacher as their friend, and they become free and confident in her presence. Thus the true atmosphere of the school-room is created—the only atmosphere in which wholesome and natural teaching and learning can thrive.

This is not a prodigal misuse of time. It is the part of thrift to so spend in the beginning, for the returns are evident in the ease and readiness with which pupils and teacher afterward work together—the value of every lesson being enhanced by the mutual good will and understanding.

The school differs from the home and the kindergarten in that its allotted tasks are evidently determined by a motive and plan outside the child’s comprehension. In many cases this must be so. The lessons which involve the mastery of the symbols used in reading, writing, and number, or the drill and practice necessary to attain skill in music or drawing or writing, have no self-evident goal for the child. So many lines, so many letters, so many problems, he attempts, because the teacher says so, and in his new universe the teacher is supreme. At home he has always chosen more or less; so, too, in the kindergarten his interest and choice determined the story or the game or the topic of conversation. He has delighted in building houses, modelling balls, weaving mats, playing games—and all, so far as he knew, for his own immediate pleasure and accomplishment. Other results, to him unknown, were of course secured. He builded better than he knew. But in every case he rejoiced in some immediate accomplishment which he desired.

In too many cases the decreed exercises of the school are meaningless and purposeless to the beginner. Such exercises easily degenerate into dull and fruitless routine, indifferent and profitless to teacher and pupil alike. To arouse desire and awaken conscious motive is the teacher’s most important work, and in teaching reading it should receive first consideration. She, therefore, after securing such freedom and coÖperation as promise a fertile soil for her seed-planting, calls the children about her to explain the purpose of the lessons which will fill their days.

Perhaps she reads to them a story which they like, a new story which they have never heard. When she reaches the interesting climax she pauses to say, “I haven’t time to read the rest of the story now. How I wish you could read! Then you might take the book and read the story yourselves. Would you not like to learn to read, so that you could read stories like these?”

In Hugh Miller’s graphic description of his childhood experience in reading, this element of purpose and desire is strongly emphasized. “The process of learning and acquiring had been a dark one,” he says, recalling his struggles with letters and syllables. He “slowly mastered” these “in humble confidence in the awful wisdom of the schoolmistress, not knowing whither it tended,” when (as a member of the Bible Class—“in the highest form”) his mind “awoke to the meaning of that most delightful of all narratives, the story of Joseph. Was there ever such a discovery made before?”

Such testimony might be repeated a thousand times over, by our pupils of to-day—if they were able to describe their common experience.

It was the first vision of the goal that gave meaning, motive, and conscious gladness to Hugh Miller’s study. Such motive and such meaning should pervade the earliest lessons in reading, and should be consciously recognized by pupil as well as teacher. We repeat, then: the teacher’s first effort, after becoming acquainted with her children, is to awaken this conscious desire to read, and to secure intelligent coÖperation in her exercises.

One teacher suggests writing upon the board some sentence which has been whispered to her by the children, and then calling an older child from another room to read the secret. This is done again and again, until the children are eager to share the power which their comrade possesses, and turn gladly to the tasks required of them, that they may the sooner reach their goal.

There is a wide difference between such teaching and the routine drill which does not enlist the child’s desire. The enthusiastic bicyclist would smile if asked to exchange his morning ride to the city for an hour’s exercise upon a fixed “bicycle exerciser” in the back hall. Nor could the most skilful pedagogue convince him that the exercise involved in making the wheel go round is as valuable as the spin which carries him to his destination, through the fresh morning air, along roads bordered with flowered fields. Yet the contrast is no more marked than that between the task of the syllable-pronouncer, who obediently performs his meaningless labor, and that of the child who, with conscious and earnest desire, sets himself to learn to read.

In order to give some sense of immediate achievement, the sentences of the first lessons should express thoughts in which the children are interested.

This is Kate.
Kate can read.
Kate has a book.
Read to me, Kate.
Kate can read.
I can read, too.
Kate has a book.
I have a book, too.
See Kate’s book!
See my book!
Kate has a doll.
I have a doll, too.
Kate has a kitty.
I have a dog.
Kate likes her doll.
I like my dog.
See my dog!
See Kate’s little kitty!
Come, little Kitty.
Come to me, Kitty.

The object of these preparatory lessons is to give some consciousness of the purpose of reading, and some sense of achievement. The sentences are the children’s, obtained in a conversation concerning Kate, who is an older pupil, or some pictured child. The sentence is the unit, and is read by the teacher. The children repeat the sentence after her reading.

Of course these first efforts are not reading. They simply represent the children’s memory of the teacher’s words and tone. Often, when asked to read alone, the child dashes at the wrong sentence with his pointer, which vainly wanders in search of the right one. But just as the frequent observation of the loved story in the picture book not only fixes the words in their order, but enables the young listener to find some of them upon the page, so, by repetition of these first sentences, the words are at last held in the mind, and are recognized in new places and under new relations. The attentive eye will recognize the new words, first in their wonted place in the sentence, then when isolated. At first the words selected for repetition and recognition are those which present fewest difficulties;—not by any means the shortest words—as a, is, too—but the meaningful words, the nouns and adjectives, and verbs which denote action. Kate, book, doll, dog, kitty—these are the first and easiest, in the lessons written above. Later, see and likes, with can read. Later still, I have, this is—while is and a will not be emphasized as units until the eyes have been trained to distinguish more readily, and the words have become familiar through constant repetition.

Such lessons should continue for several weeks, introducing the various dear and oft-seen objects of the child’s environment, and the actions with which he has long been familiar. The sentences should be worth reading, and grouped in coherent paragraphs. Drill in recognizing the words should follow the sentence reading, in every day’s lesson.

When the children can recognize at sight a vocabulary of one hundred to two hundred words, they should begin to compare them, and to place in groups those which are alike in sound. For example: book, look, and brook are known; red and fed; cat, hat, and pat; Fan, ran, can, and Dan. Placed in lists, their similarity is evident:

book
look
took

fed
red
bed

cat
hat
sat

Fan
ran
man

Some one volunteers to increase the list, adding took, bed, sat, and man. Here is the beginning of the analysis of words into their sounds, and with this lesson a new feature appears in our word study.

Such lessons in sentence reading as have been suggested, if continued long enough and with sufficient discretion on the part of the teacher, might enable a class to read independently—for, even without the teacher’s direction, obvious likenesses and differences in words are noted by the children, and rules are deduced therefrom. But the mastery of a large vocabulary is readily secured only through attention to the common laws of pronunciation, and familiarity with the sound units. Thus far every word has been presented as a new unit. Now the children should learn that these words are like many others in form, and that the pronunciation of one serves as a key to the many. Knowing book, all monosyllables ending in ook can at once enter their vocabulary of recognizable words; knowing Fan, all monosyllables with the an ending are known. The missing factor is the knowledge of the sounds of the separate letters which are initials in these group words—m-an, F-an, c-an, r-an, t-an, p-an. At this juncture these sounds should be taught.

There has been some question among teachers as to the time for teaching sounds of the letters. It is wise to defer this teaching until the children have acquired some little facility in reading, and understand its purpose, that their work may not be approached from the mechanical side solely. Again, the vocabulary which the children already know reveals groups of similar words and suggests the wisdom of analysis and classification. And, further, the too early attempt to study the lists of similar words and to select and emphasize them for use in reading, drives the children at once to their most difficult task. It is much easier to recognize Hiawatha and arrow, because they are long and different, and seem hard, than to name promptly the elusive can, ran, and tan, which seem so easy and yet are so nearly alike as to be formidable obstacles to the success of the untrained observer. The climax of objection is reached when we cite the tendency to make sentences solely for the sake of using certain words, thus destroying the element of thought value in the sentence. “Does the fat rat see the cat on the mat?” is far more difficult for a child than is “Hiawatha lived in a wigwam with old Nokomis”—for the reasons above named.

The mastery of words is an essential element in learning to read. Our common mistake is, not that we do such work too well, but that we make it the final aim of the reading lesson, and lead the children to feel that they can read when they are merely able to pronounce words. Perhaps lack of careful attention to the form of words is quite as serious a mistake, for it results in carelessness in reading.

The study of form and of sound should be associated, but attention to sound alone should precede any attempt to master the form as suggesting sound. Children should be taught to recognize and to distinguish sounds, to repeat them accurately, to speak them distinctly, before they are taught to copy the single characters which represent these sounds. To hear, to repeat, to compare, to distinguish sounds, should be the order of the instruction.

Careless speech and indistinct articulation often arise from imperfect hearing, or indifferent attention to what is said. Children should be trained in the early lessons to hear, and to repeat, exactly what is said. The repetition is a test of the child’s hearing. Begin with short sentences. Speak them clearly, in a moderate voice, requiring the children to repeat after once hearing. Gradually increase the length of sentence, but do not increase the volume of voice; speak distinctly, and expect the children to be attentive enough to hear an ordinary tone; teach them to respond in the same tone, with clear articulation. Continue this exercise until a long sentence can be accurately returned; then pronounce lists of words beginning with letters which demand careful articulation. When these have been mastered, draw attention to initial sounds, and then to the letters which represent them. Work with these until every letter suggests its sounds to the pupils, whether in a new or in a familiar word. With little children, the sound should be taught first in connection with initial letters always.

A successful device consists in allowing each pupil to represent a certain sound. If the sound is the initial sound in his own name, it will be easy for the children to remember. Thus—John can always suggest the sound of j, Mary the sound of m, Peter the sound of p, and so on. A class of children aided in this way will master the sounds of the letters in a very short time.

Having learned, through the initials, the sounds which various letters represent, the next step will be to analyze monosyllables into their sounds. Select first those containing short vowels, in order to avoid the difficulty of the silent letter. The preliminary drill with the initials will have made this step an easy one to take.

Whenever a type word is represented, as black, for example, the children should be taught to suggest other words which rhyme with the pattern, as crack, back, lack, etc. If in every such case the common element is studied and mastered, in a few weeks the children will become possessors of a large vocabulary, whose basis is the few familiar words which they have studied. Every type word will stand for a list of words similar in form.

This study of sounds should continue through at least the first five school years. After analyzing any word into its separate sounds, the children should be required to name other known words which resemble the one studied. This will tend to a habit of classification, and will enable the pupil to depend upon himself in his study.

Diacritical marks are a help in mastering new words, if the key words have been studied in connection with the marks. They are needed also in consulting the dictionary for pronunciation. They should be taught only when necessary to the pronunciation. In older classes, after the use of the dictionary becomes necessary, a complete list should be mastered. It is a mistake to insist upon diacritical marking when the children can pronounce accurately without. I remember hearing a teacher chide a pupil for reading a sentence before she had time to mark the vowels, but, since the child could and did read without such help, the marking was evidently unnecessary. It serves as a means to an end, and should be dispensed with when the end can be reached without such artificial aid.

As a matter of fact, every child refers a new word back to a similar word with which he has become familiar. Thus: black, once mastered, serves as a key to sack, crack, quack, etc. The only elements in these words are the final element ack and the initial sounds. If a child hesitates with a new word, help him to refer at once to the type word which he has already mastered. Instead of pronouncing the new word for him, insist upon his using for himself his own stock of knowledge. Help him only where he cannot help himself. If he forms the habit of referring the unknown to the kindred known, he will become independent in study. For example, to a six-years-old child the word blacksmith may, at first sight, appear formidable. Separated into its parts and referred to the simple words already mastered, the child conquers the newcomer, and adds it to his list of servants. He is endowed with new strength, because he has mastered something which seemed to him hard. Such conquests, often repeated, lead to strength and independence. In many cases, it is wise to leave a child to wrestle with a word which at first sight he fails to master. Of course this process is unwise if he has no experience to which he can refer for help. Guess-work will never take the place of thought, and a child should not be driven to guess at the pronunciation, but every attempt should be based upon something which he has been taught in former lessons. Such practice will lead to thoughtful self-help.

This work may be facilitated by many devices. We have seen classes hunting for new words beginning with a given sound, as eagerly as if they were playing hide-and-seek. Or with the utmost enjoyment they have made lists of words beginning with chosen sounds; or matched pairs of words which rhymed. But their most valuable exercise is that in which the old familiar word of their first vocabulary is made the key which unlocks the new.

Now, when a new word is presented, the teacher no longer pronounces it for the children, but asks instead, “What word helps you to pronounce it?” Bright is not a new word, because the children know light, remember the sound of br, and put their two bits of knowledge together to meet the new emergency. They do for themselves what the teacher has heretofore done for them.

A most helpful form of word study, which is suitable for desk work, is making lists of words containing the same sound. It strengthens the habit of classification, and helps in spelling and in the recognition of new words.

The most difficult work for children appears in words which are spelled alike and pronounced differently, or in words pronounced alike and spelled differently, or in the various equivalents of the same sound which our language affords. Chair, their, where, etc., suggest the problems of this nature. This work should be introduced not earlier than the third or fourth year. It should come in connection with the spelling lesson, and not with the reading. The mastery of these difficulties in English spelling doubtless requires many months of careful teaching.

It must not be forgotten that children are hindered and not helped by any attempt to spell, by sound, words which are unique in spelling. Through, for example, should be learned by sight, and not by sound. Beautiful, tongue, physique, may illustrate this group. The eye and not the ear must be depended upon in the mastery of such words. Care should be taken to develop the habit of accurate attention through the eye as well as the ear. Any attempt to mark the sounds in these words increases the labor without increasing facility. If the teacher makes a careful classification of the ordinary words which frequently recur in the reading lesson, she will discover the class which must be mastered by sight. Out of the remainder she can make lists which include the ordinary type sounds. The study of these lists will reduce the labor of word mastery to its minimum, and the habit of comparison developed through this study will go far to make the children independent in the pronunciation of new words.

It is self-evident that this plan can be pursued only when the words are amenable to common phonic laws. Cough, and its congeners, should be named as new wholes. So with all words which follow no rule, and must be pronounced by substitution. No time should be lost by attempting a method which has no excuse for being, in such cases. In its place, as a help to the mastery of groups of kindred words, it is invaluable. Out of place, it is bad.

For diacritical marks and correct pronunciation, the teacher is referred to the standard dictionaries. It should not be forgotten that the teacher’s pronunciation is a guide to the pupil. She needs a quick ear and the careful judgment which will render her a safe guide. The familiar rule should direct her practice: When in doubt, consult the dictionary.

Note the value of this word mastery. The pupil fast becomes independent of the teacher, and ready to master the page for himself. Note, also, that this power becomes his in proportion to the teacher’s purpose to make him self-helpful, and her skill in finding the connecting link between the new knowledge and the old.

Two elements of learning to read have been presented here: sentence reading and word mastery. Of the study of the meaning of the words and the development of the power of imagination we shall speak elsewhere.

Reading without purpose is sauntering, not exercise. More is got from one book on which the thought settles for definite end in knowledge, than from libraries skimmed over by a wandering eye. A cottage flower gives honey to the bee, a king’s garden none to the butterfly.

—Edward Bulwer.

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