Special Method in Primary Reading and Oral Work with Stories Part 19

There are many stanzas to this poem, a few of which the teacher will wish to omit, as those referring to the visits to the ale-house and the tavern. The pupils become perfectly familiar with the jingle, so they can with ease give it orally, then the teacher writes the first line of a stanza at the board and pointing to it asks a pupil to give the remainder of the stanza. The mistake is ludicrous if the wrong lines follow the first, and the pupils wish to avoid such a mistake.

6. There were two birds sat on a stone, Fa, la, la, la, lal, de.

One flew away and then there was one, Fa, la, la, la, lal, de.

The other flew after and then there was none, Fa, la, la, la, lal, de.

And so the poor stone was left all alone, Fa, la, la, la, lal, de.

The children act out this rhyme at first as they say it, later, silently, as they see what is called for at the board.

Any number may be subst.i.tuted for _two_ in the first line, but when they come to the third line the number subst.i.tuted for one should be such that only one will remain, _e.g._, There were _eight_ birds sat on a stone, _Seven_ flew away, etc. The children are sometimes caught by the wrong number being told to fly. The children should not fly until they are sure that it is all right.

7. What are your eyes for?

What are your ears for?

What is your nose for?

What is your tongue for?

What is your mouth for?

What is your hand for?

What are your fingers for?

What are your teeth for?

What is your brain for?

What is your heart for?

These questions are read silently by the children, then answered orally in complete sentences, one child only answering at one time. The answers are so absurd when wrong that each child is careful to know what is asked.

These are only a few of the ways in which "Mother Goose" may be used as reading material. Each teacher will think out for herself ways in which these rhymes may be profitably and happily employed.

MRS. LIDA MCMURRY.

CHAPTER VII

METHOD IN PRIMARY READING

The problem of primary reading is one of the most complex and difficult in the whole range of school instruction. A large proportion of the finest skill and sympathy of teachers has been expended in efforts to find the appropriate and natural method of teaching children to read.

All sorts of methods and devices have been employed, from the most formal and mechanical to the most spirited and realistic.

The first requisite to good reading is something worth reading, something valuable and interesting to the children, and adapted to their minds. We must take it for granted in this discussion that the best literature and the best stories have been selected, and what the teacher has to do is, first, to appreciate these masterpieces for herself, and second, to bring the children in the reading lessons to appreciate and enjoy them. In the primary grades we are not so richly supplied with available materials from good literature as in intermediate and grammar grades. This is due not to difficulty in thought, but to the unfamiliar written and printed forms. The great problem in primary reading is to master these strange forms as quickly as possible, and find entrance to the story-land of books. For several years, however, primary teachers have been selecting and adapting the best stories, and some of the leading publishers have brought out in choice school-book form books which are well adapted to the reading of primary grades.

We should like to a.s.sume one other advantage. If the children have been treated orally to "Robinson Crusoe" in the second grade, they will appreciate and read the story much better in the third grade. If some of Grimm's stories are told in first grade, they can be read with ease in the second grade. The teacher's oral presentation of the stories is the right way to bring them close to the life and interest of children. In the first grade, as shown in the chapter on oral lessons, it is the only way, because the children cannot yet read. But even if they could read, the oral treatment is much better. The oral presentation is more lively, natural, and realistic. The teacher can adapt the story and the language to the immediate needs of the cla.s.s as no author can. She can question, or suggest lines of thought, or call up ideas from the children's experience. The oral manner is the true way to let the children delve into the rich culture-content of stories and to awaken a taste for their beauty and truth. We could well wish that before children read mythical stories in fourth grade, they had been stirred up to enjoy them by oral narration and discussion in the preceding year. In the same way, if the reading bears on interesting science topics previously studied, it will be a distinct advantage to the reading lesson. Children like to read about things that have previously excited their interest, whether in story or science. The difficulties of formal reading will also be partly overcome by familiarity with the harder names and words. Our conclusion is that reading lessons, alone, cannot provide all the conditions favorable to good reading. Some of these can be well supplied by other studies or by preliminary lessons which pave the way for the reading proper. This matter has been so fully discussed in the earlier chapters on oral work that it requires no further treatment here.

FOLK-LORE STORIES AS READING EXERCISES FOR FIRST GRADE

Let it be supposed that a cla.s.s of first-grade children has learned to tell a certain story orally. It has interested them and stirred up their thought.

Let them next learn to read the same story in a very simple form. This will lead to a series of elementary reading lessons in connection with the story, and the aim should be strictly that of mastering the early difficulties of reading. The teacher recalls the story, and asks for a statement from its beginning. If the sentence furnished by the child is simple and suitable, the teacher writes it on the blackboard in plain large script. Each child reads it through and points out the words. Let there be a lively drill upon the sentence till the picture of each word becomes clear and distinct. During the first lesson, two or three short sentences can be handled with success. As new words are learned, they should be mixed up on the board with those learned before, and a quick and varied drill on the words in sentences or in columns be employed to establish the forms in memory.[8] Speed, variety in device, and watchfulness to keep all busy and attentive are necessary to secure good results.

[8] First-cla.s.s primary teachers claim that drills are unnecessary if the teacher is skilful in recombining the old words in new sentences.

After a few lessons one or two of the simpler words may be taken for phonetic a.n.a.lysis. The simple sounds are a.s.sociated with the letters that represent them. These familiar letters are later met and identified in new words, and, as soon as a number of sounds with their symbols have been learned, new words can be constructed and p.r.o.nounced from these known elements.

The self-activity of the children in recognizing the elementary sounds, already met, in new words as fast as they come up, is one of the chief merits of this early study of words. They thus early learn the power of self-help and of confident reliance upon themselves in acquiring and using knowledge. The chief difficulty is in telling which sound to use, as a letter often has several sounds (as _a_, _e_, _s_, _c_, etc.). But the children are capable of testing the known sounds of a letter upon a new word, and in most cases, of deciding which to use. The thoughtless habit of p.r.o.nouncing every new word for a child, without effort on his part, checks and spoils his interest and self-activity. It does not seem necessary to use an extensive system of diacritical markings to guide him in these efforts to discriminate sounds. It is better to use the marks as little as possible and learn to interpret words as they usually appear in print. Experience has shown decisively that a lively and vigorous self-activity is manifested by such early efforts in learning to read. It is one of the most encouraging signs in education to see little children in their first efforts to master the formal art of reading, showing this spirited self-reliant energy.

In the same way, they recognize old words in sentences and new or changed combinations of old forms, and begin to read new sentences which combine old words in new relations.

In short, the sentence, word, and phonic methods are all used in fitting alternation, while originality and variety of device are necessary in the best exercise of teaching power.

The processes of learning to read by such board-script work are partly a.n.a.lytic and partly synthetic. Children begin with sentences, a.n.a.lyze them into words, and some of the words into their simple sounds. But when these sounds begin to grow familiar, they are identified again in other words, thus combining them into new forms. In the same way, words once learned by the a.n.a.lytic study of sentences are recognized again in new sentences, and thus interpreted in new relations.

The short sentences, derived from a familiar story, when ranged together supply a brief, simple outline of the story. If now this series of sentences be written on the board or printed on slips of paper, the whole story may be reviewed by the cla.s.s from day to day till the word and sentence forms are well mastered. For making these printed slips, some teachers use a small printing-press, or a typewriter. Eventually several stories may be collected and sewed together, so as to form a little reading-book which is the result of the constructive work of teacher and pupils.

The reading lessons just described are entirely separate from the oral treatment and reproduction of the stories; yet the thought and interest awakened in the oral work are helpful in keeping up a lively effort in the reading cla.s.s. The thought material in a good story is itself a mental stimulus, and produces a wakefulness which is favorable to imprinting the forms as well as the content of thought. Expression, also, that is, natural and vivid rendering of the thought, is always aimed at in reading, and springs spontaneously from interesting thought studies.

Many teachers use the materials furnished by oral lessons in natural science as a similar introduction to reading in first grade. The science lessons furnish good thought matter for simple sentences, and there is good reason why, in learning to read, children should use sentences drawn both from literature and from natural science.

READING IN THE SECOND GRADE

The oral lessons in good stories, and the later board-use of these materials in learning the elements of formal reading, are an excellent preparation for the fuller and more extended reading of similar matter in the second and third grades.

When the oral work of the first grade has thus kindled the fancy of a child upon these charming pictures, and the later board-work has acquainted him with letter and word symbols which express such thought, the reading of the same and other stories of like character (a year later) will follow as an easy and natural sequence. As a preliminary to all good reading exercises, there should be rich and fruitful thought adapted to the age of children. The realm of cla.s.sic folk-lore contains abundant thought material peculiar in its fitness to awaken the interest and fancy of children in the first two grades. To bring these choice stories close to the hearts of children should be the aim of much of the work in both these grades. Such an aim, skilfully carried out, not only conduces to the joy of children in first grade, but infuses the reading lessons of second grade with thought and culture of the best quality.

Interest and vigor of thought are certain to help right expression and reading. Reading, like every other study, should be based upon realities. When there is real thought and feeling in the children, a correct expression of them is more easily secured than by formal demands or by intimidation.

The stories to be read in second or third grade may be fuller and longer than the brief outline sentences used for board-work in the first grade.

Besides, these tales, being cla.s.sic and of permanent value, do not lose their charm by repet.i.tion.

METHOD

By oral reading, we mean the giving of the thought obtained from a printed page to others through the medium of the voice.

There is first the training of the eye in taking in a number of words at a glance--a mechanical process; then the interpretation of these groups of words--a mental process; next the making known of the ideas thus obtained to others, by means of the voice--also a mechanical process.

The children need special help in each step. We are apt to overdo one at the expense of the others.

1. Eye-training is the foundation of all good reading. Various devices are resorted to in obtaining it. We will suggest a few, not new at all, but useful.

(_a_) A strip of cardboard, on which is a clause or sentence, is held before the cla.s.s, for a moment only, and then removed. The length of the task is increased as the eye becomes trained to this kind of work.

(_b_) The children open their books at a signal from the teacher, glance through a line, or part of one, indicated by the teacher, close book at once and give the line.

(_c_) The teacher places on the board clauses or sentences bearing on the lesson, and covers with a map. The map is rolled up to show one of these, which is almost immediately erased. The children are then asked to give it. The map is then rolled up higher, exposing another, which also is speedily erased--and so on until all have been given to the children and erased.

2. The child needs not only to be able to recognize groups of words, but he must be able to get thought from them. The following are some devices to that end:--

(_a_) Suggestive pictures can be made use of to advantage all through the primary grades. If the child reads part of the story in the picture, and finds it interesting, he will want to read from the printed page the part not given in the picture.