Special Method in Primary Reading and Oral Work with Stories Part 18

If a red-headed woodp.e.c.k.e.r fails to answer the question put to him, he takes the place of the interlocutor. It is an honor to be able to answer all the questions put:--

What color is your head?

What color is your throat?

What color is your breast?

What colors on your wings?

What color is your bill?

What do you do?

Where do you make your nest?

To a set of questions like the following, the children give the answers, after reading the questions silently:--

What bird did you first see this spring?

What have you seen a robin do?

What flower did you see first?

What yellow flowers have you seen this spring?

What white flowers?

What blue flowers?

What bird builds a nest in a tree trunk?

What bird builds a nest on the ground?

THE BABY ROBIN

I saw two robins on the ground.

One was a mamma robin.

The other was a baby robin.

The baby robin was as big as its mother.

Its breast was spotted.

Its mother gave it an earthworm.

At first it dropped it, but its mother picked it up and gave it to her baby again.

This time it got a better hold. By several gulps it swallowed the worm.

The mother looked proud of her baby. (This is the teacher's experience which she tells the children from the board. Sometimes she writes the observations which one of the children have made.)

As no two teachers will have the same material for Nature Study, the reading material will not be multiplied here.

Gradually, as the pupils can stand it, the sentences are lengthened a little as necessary, and ma.s.sed into paragraphs.

The use of the "Mother Goose Rhymes" as a means of enlivening the first year reading lessons is also treated as follows by Mrs. Lida McMurry.

(Taken from _School and Home Education_ for October, 1902.)

Many of the children on entering school are well versed in Nursery Rhymes. They enjoy repeating them. Other children may not know them so well, but soon learn them from their cla.s.smates. Teachers and pupils may have a happy time together with Mother Goose, and at the same time the pupils are learning to read without realizing that what they are doing is something that they are not accustomed to.

I will suggest a few ways in which these rhymes may be made the basis for reading lessons:--

Take this rhyme--

1. Dance, Thumbkin, dance, Dance, ye merrymen, every one; For Thumbkin he can dance alone, Thumbkin he can dance alone.

The second, third, fourth, and fifth stanzas are like the first, only Foreman, Longman, Ringman, and Littleman are in turn subst.i.tuted for Thumbkin.

The children first learn to act out each stanza as they recite it together. The thumb is held up and moved about as if dancing, as the first line is given. All the fingers dance as the second line is recited. The thumb dances alone as the third and fourth lines are repeated.

The teacher then repeats the stanza alone, and the children's fingers accompany her.

Later, when the children have learned to act out the story well, as the teacher repeats it, the teacher writes the first line at the board, and, pointing to it, asks the children to do what the board directs. They cannot tell what it is, so the teacher says, "The board is talking to _Thumbkin_," writing the name on the board as she says it. "What do you think it wants Thumbkin to do?" pointing to _Dance_ in the line on the board. The next line is written on the board. The children quite likely will guess rightly what it says, because of its setting. If not, the teacher will help them as at first. In the same way they connect the third and fourth lines with the oral expression of the same, and act them out accordingly. That the children respond readily to the directions as written is no proof, at first, that they know even most of the words in the lines. The teacher's test is a part of the play.

To-day, instead of writing the first line, she writes the second. Many get caught. They will be more alert another time. As they can never tell which line will appear first, they learn to discriminate by giving closer attention to the form of the words.

Sometimes the teacher writes the six names--Thumbkin, Foreman, etc., and Merrymen, on the board. She points to the name or names of the one, or ones, that should dance. The children do not like to make mistakes in responding with the fingers.

Sometimes the teacher points to a name on the board, as Foreman, and writes "dance alone," or "dance every one." The alert children see that the latter does not apply.

The words are not drilled upon. The game, with variations sometimes, is played quite frequently, but never so long at a time that the children weary of it. Three or four plays or games are given at a single recitation. The interests of the children are studied, and rhymes which they do not enjoy as reading material are dropped, and others subst.i.tuted. The rhymes should often be repeated, just as they occur in "Mother Goose," that the children may not forget them.

2. Eye winker.

Tom tinker.

Mouth eater.

Chin chopper.

Chin chopper.

The children point to the parts of the face as they are named. They first learn to give the rhyme with its accompanying motion orally, then they respond to it as written on the board (Tom tinker is the other eye). When they do this readily the directions are written out of their order. This tests the children's ability to distinguish one form from another. No child likes to give the wrong motion in response to a direction, _e.g._, point to his mouth when Eye winker is called for.

3. The children, we will suppose, know a number of rhymes, as, _e.g._,

A diller, a dollar, a ten o'clock scholar.

A little boy went into a barn.

Baa, baa, black sheep.

Rain, rain, go away, etc.

The teacher writes the first line of one of these rhymes on the board and asks a child to give the rhyme. He cannot at first. Later he will learn to recognize it; so with all the rhymes he knows. When he can give any rhyme called for in response to the first line as written at the board, another line (not the first) is written, and the child asked to give the rhyme of which it is a part.

4. Is John Smith within?

Yes, that he is.

Can he set a shoe?

Ay, marry, two.

Here a nail and there a nail, Tick, tack, too.

After the children have learned the above rhyme, acting it out, by imitating the voices of the two speakers, and by driving the nails, the two questions are asked at the board, and the children respond orally.

Sometimes the second question, slightly altered, is asked first, _e.g._, "Can John Smith set a shoe?" Sometimes "Who is within?" appears on the board.

5. Old Mother Hubbard.