UC NRLF 
 
 If L B 
 
 ^AZMQW TO TEACH BEGINNING READING 
 
 ■n -^ T r c 
 
 By 
 
 SAMUEL CHESTER PARKER 
 Prn'i-"' nf Educational Methods 
 I iiiveisily of Chicago 
 
 Rrprtatcd fium the EUmenlcry School Journal 
 
/ 
 
HOW TO TEACH BEGINNING READING 
 
 SAMUEL CHESTER PARKER- 
 University of Chicago 
 
 ARTICLE I 
 
 Highly developed technique. — Methods and devices for teach- 
 ing beginning reading have been perfected to a very high degree 
 in some of the model schools of the country. By means of reports 
 of actual lessons observed, we hope through this series of articles 
 to famiharize more teachers and super\'isors with these methods. 
 In order to show the validity of the practices described, we shall 
 present also the scientific principles and evidence which justify 
 the methods used. 
 
 Sections of the discussion. — The discussion wiU be organized 
 imder the following headings: I. General picture of first-grade 
 activities. II. Pre-primer blackboard and chart reading. III. 
 Beginning book reading. IV. Independent recognition of new 
 words: phonetic analysis. V. A second-grade lesson illustrating 
 achievements and technique. VI. Scientific investigations of 
 reading. 
 
 In sections II to IV inclusive we shall present detailed accounts 
 of first-grade lessons taught by Miss Marjorie Hardy, and in sec- 
 tion V a second-grade lesson by Miss Laura Lucas, both of the 
 University of Chicago Elementary School. 
 
 I. GENERAL PICTtJRE OF FIRST-GRADE ACTIVITIES 
 
 Beginning reading no longer the "scourge of infancy" but tite 
 road to fairyland. — By describing these lessons in detail we shall 
 give the reader some feeling of the atmosphere of a modern school- 
 room in which the fine art of teaching has been perfected through 
 careful study and practice. In such a situation, learning to read 
 is no longer the "scourge of infancy," as Rousseau called it in 1762, 
 and as it was in many places even a generation ago. Instead, our 
 modem teaching early opens to children the road to the fairyland 
 
 ■ Sample lessons taught by Marjorie Hardy and Laura Lucas. 
 
 4G-1U2^J 
 
I THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL [Sepiember 
 
 of fable, mj'th, adventure, and romance as found in the world of 
 children's books. Every step that they take along this road 
 under the teacher's guidance is playful and delightful. At the 
 same time each step is a part of a most systematic and progressive 
 scheme of learning, all parts of which have been definitely planned 
 in advance. Yet so thoroughly are the various teaching processes 
 adapted to the children's instinctive interests and activities that 
 delight in learning and systematic progress go hand in hand. 
 
 Much incidental reading connected with studies of home and farm. 
 — Since much of the reading in Miss Hardy's room was intimately 
 connected with other activities of the children, it is desirable to 
 get an idea of the general course of study in the first grade in order 
 to understand the principles of teaching upon which the reading 
 was based. The work of the first two or three months in this first 
 grade was very much like that of an advanced kindergarten group, 
 plus specific training in reading and number. Like a progressive 
 kindergarten, the first grade introduced children to a study of 
 home and community life through play, this being the first step 
 in a progressive study of social life, which, as it continues through 
 the grades, develops into the history, geography, and civics of the 
 later years. The first social unit studied was the home. The 
 children talked about the rooms which they had in their own 
 homes and the purposes that each served, using such sentences 
 as, "We cook in the kitchen. We eat in the diningroom. We 
 sleep in the bedroom, " etc. Playrooms were constructed out of 
 blocks or paper or cardboard. Each child chose a room, planned 
 the necessary furniture, constructed it, described his plans and 
 his work, etc. The little sentences quoted were used incidentally 
 for reading material. 
 
 The study of the home was followed by a study of farm life. 
 The farmyard, its buildings, occupants, etc., were constructed in 
 a sand pan after making a large plan with labels for the house, 
 barn, road, etc. The story of the farmer bringing his crops to 
 town or to the railroad for shipment was developed. Some of 
 the products were followed into the grocery store which was studied 
 for a few days and linked up with the activities of the home. 
 Thus the children were given a playful but thoughtful initiation 
 
igai] HOW TO TEACH BEGINNING RE.\DING 3 
 
 into the study of social activities and the interdependence of various 
 social units — families, farms, stores, etc. — in the community. In 
 connection with these studies there was much incidental reading, 
 counting, and measuring. 
 
 Specific reading lessons began wtlk favorite nursery games and 
 rhymes. — In addition to these meaningful social studies, another 
 type of kindergarten activity was extensively used in this first 
 grade, namely, children's games centering around nursery rh^Tnes 
 and songs, such as "Jack jump over the candlestick," "Jack and 
 Jill, " and "The old cat is asleep." 
 
 These rh>-thmic but often nonsensical games and songs consti- 
 tute one of the most characteristic and pleasurable features of 
 child life. In the kindergarten such nursery rhymes are used in 
 the form of games to train in phj-sical activity, rh>-thmic control, 
 singing, oral expression, co-operation, etc. The same educational 
 ends were served by these activities in the first grade. In addition, 
 however, they furnished the subject-matter for many of the read- 
 ing lessons of the first few weeks. 
 
 Fifteen minutes of specific reading plus much incidental reading. — 
 With this general picture of work and play during the first few 
 months in the first grade, we may proceed to a description of the 
 teaching of reading which I observed during the period set apart 
 for it in the daily program. This period occupied about fifteen 
 to twenty minutes in the morning. In addition to this specific 
 period there was, as has been stated, much incidental reading 
 throughout the day which I did not see. In conversation, Miss 
 Hardy emphasized the fact that every activity during the day 
 was made the basis of some reading. This might be a "line for 
 the day" on the bulletin board in the morning, e.g., "We plant 
 our bulbs today, " a word here, a phrase or sentence there, etc. 
 
 Even specific reading period contained variety of activities. — On 
 the other hand, the intensive reading period of fifteen minutes did 
 not consist of a mere continuous reading of one kind, but was broken 
 up into a variety of activities which will appear in the descriptions 
 that follow. This variety is necessary in order to avoid the nervous 
 strain, inattention, and consequent waste that result from pro- 
 longed concern with a single form of intellectual activity with 
 children of this age. 
 
4 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL [Sepiember 
 
 Homelike atmosphere of room puts children at ease. — Most of 
 the children in Miss Hardy's room had not attended a kinder- 
 garten; hence the first days' activities were especially arranged to 
 make the little ones feel at home and comfortable and contented 
 in the strange new environment. Blocks, balls, dolls, and other 
 playthings were on hand, and a general homelike atmosphere was 
 created. The effect of one item was noted in the remark of a 
 child who told his mother, " We have curtains in our room at school 
 just like we have at home." 
 
 n. PRE-PRIMER BLACKBOARD AND CHART READING 
 A. SAMPLE LESSONS 
 
 Action words and games provided first reading material. — The 
 first reading experiences were given in connection with the follow- 
 ing action words: run, hop, skip, jump. These were written on 
 the board and taught by means of a game in which one chUd 
 "blinded" his eyes in the corner; another child ran to the board 
 and pointed at the word, e.g. "hop", whispered it to the teacher, 
 hopped to his seat, and said, "Ready." Thereupon the child 
 in the corner said, "I heard you hop" (provided he guessed right), 
 and ran to the blackboard and pointed at the word "hop." These 
 activities occurred frequently during the day and provided fun 
 for the children as well as relaxation and physical exercise. When 
 the children had to go to the board, or to any other part of the 
 room, the teacher frequently wrote "hop" or "skip," etc. on the 
 blackboard and the children used the corresponding method of 
 locomotion. 
 
 FIRST DAY WITH "JACK BE NIMBLE" 
 
 Nursery rhyme from books which children had examined. — On the 
 fourth day of school the teacher introduced during the reading 
 period the nursery rhyme: 
 
 Jack be nimble, 
 
 Jack be quick. 
 
 Jack jump over 
 
 The candlestick. 
 
 The children had been examining various books of nursery 
 rhymes found on the "library table " at one side of the room. Miss 
 Hardy asked some children to show her their favorite rhymes and 
 
ijw/j HOW TO TEACH BEGINNING READING 5 
 
 then skilfully centered their attention on one suitable for an easy 
 reading lesson, namely, "Jack jump over the candlestick." 
 
 Games played unth candlestick and at blackboard. — A candlestick 
 which had been pro\-ided for the occasion was brought out and the 
 children played a game of jumping over it, meanwhile becoming 
 more familiar with the rhjTne. Miss Hardy then said she knew 
 another way of playing the game in which all could play it at once. 
 The children wondered how it could be done, and the teacher showed 
 them how to represent a candlestick on the blackboard with the 
 chalk and how to show Jack jumping back and forth by curved 
 lines. The children e.\hibited considerable individuality in their 
 drawings of the candlestick, some adding a little curved handle, 
 others adding the flame with smoke trailing off. They practiced 
 the rhythmic sweeps, back and forth, while reciting the rhyme in 
 iinison. 
 
 Pupils told teacher how to urite rhyme on blackboard. — Finally, 
 Miss Hardy said, "Wouldn't it be fun to have this rhyme written 
 on the blackboard so we can all see it and read it instead of having 
 just one copy in the book? .... I will write it; but you must 
 
 help me by telling me just what to say Who can tell me 
 
 what to write first?" A boy said, "Jack be nimble." She wrote 
 this line and then proceeded to write the other lines as the chil- 
 dren dictated them. This process exemplified the finest art in teach- 
 ing the first reading lesson with continxxous Tna.tena.\. WTiy? We 
 shall see when we come to the systematic discussion of the prin- 
 ciples of teaching first-grade reading which follows this story. 
 Meanwhile, we may note that the end of the reading period had 
 arrived and Miss Hardy told the children she would write "Save" 
 on the blackboard so that the janitor would not erase their rhjTne 
 until they wanted him to. 
 
 Great detail of fine technique illustrated by fuller descriptions. — 
 In order to illustrate how many devices and varied processes are 
 included in the initial teaching of reading we shall describe in 
 somewhat greater detail the reading lessons which followed the 
 first presentation of the rhjTne. Some of these devices illustrate 
 not only the teaching of reading itself but also the intimate correla- 
 tion with other activities and procedures in order to avoid fatigue 
 and inattention. 
 
6 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL [Septtmber 
 
 SECOND DAY WITH "jACK BE NIMBLE" 
 
 Reading from large printed chart. — ^The next day, at the begin- 
 ning of the reading period, the class counted in concert the number 
 of children present in the group, and one child then counted out 
 the appropriate number of little chairs and arranged them in a 
 semicircle at the front of the room not far from the blackboard. 
 The teacher then wrote "skip" on the board, and the children 
 skipped gaily to their places. After they were settled and atten- 
 tive the teacher recalled the rhyme of the day before, asking them 
 how many lines were in it, and recalled that they had written 
 "Save" on the board. But the rhyme was no longer there. She 
 then said: "I have a surprise for you today. I have the rhyme 
 with a picture printed on a chart [which she then hung before 
 them] so the janitor could clean the blackboard. Let's see if we 
 can all read the rhjone from the chart just as we did from the black- 
 board yesterday." 
 
 Group reading of whole rhyme. — -The teacher then held a long 
 strip of cardboard under each line as she and the children read it 
 in unison. 
 
 Individual reading of whole rhyme. — Several children were then 
 given a chance to read the rhyme indi\adually while the teacher 
 moved the cardboard strip down. 
 
 "Show us the line that says." — The teacher then said, "Who can 
 run up and show us the line that says, ' The candlestick ' ? — 
 Margery." Margery held the strip of cardboard under the right 
 line. "Who sees the line that says, 'Jack, be nimble' ? — Richard." 
 
 Duplicate chart cut into lines and inserted in a rack. — Miss 
 Hardy then brought out a dupHcate chart of the rhyme. She 
 said, "Here I have another copy of the chart without the picture. 
 See if it looks the same .... four lines .... Jack be nimble 
 .... just the same. Do you think it would be fun to cut off 
 each line and have a child put it where it belongs in this rack?" 
 indicating a rack which hung on the blackboard and was so con- 
 structed that cardboard strips could be easily inserted.' With 
 appropriate remarks each line was cut off and given to a child 
 
 « "The Plymouth Chart.',' Chicago: Plymouth Press, 6749 Wentworth Avenue, 
 $4.00. It consists of a strong sheet of paper with ledges in which strips may be 
 inserted. 
 
ig2i] HOW TO TEACH BEGINNING READING 7 
 
 who was assisted in placing it in the rack. With the last line 
 she said, "Isn't 'candlestick' a long word? We can easily tell it 
 because it is so long." 
 
 Game of finding corresponding lines in the two charts. — "Now," 
 she said, " I am going to give you a new game. I am going to take 
 a line out of the rack while you have your eyes shut. Then you 
 look to see which line is missing and find the same line on the other 
 chart. Be sure to study it out before you raise your hand. Now, 
 blind your eyes." 
 
 Taking out the strip "Jack be quick," she said, "Ready." 
 After giving most of the children time to raise their hands, John 
 was called on, "What line is it?" "Jack be quick" said John. 
 "That's right; now match it up on the full chart (i.e., hold it under 
 the line that says the same thing) and then put it back where it 
 belongs in the rack." 
 
 The game was then repeated with the third line, "Jack jump 
 over." The child who was called on said it read, "Jack be quick." 
 The teacher than assisted him to read the complete chart from the 
 beginning until he came to and recognized the correct line. The 
 game was continued until all lines had been used. 
 
 Game of giving children lines from rack and recalling and repla- 
 cing them. — "Now we will play another game," said Miss Hardy. 
 "I will give each line to a child, and when I call for that line, the 
 child who has it must run up and match it on the whole chart 
 and then place it where it belongs in the rack." After the strips 
 were handed out, she said, "Who has the first line?" but the child 
 who had it was not sure although her neighbor, looking over 
 her shoulder volunteered, "I know who has." "Florence," said 
 
 the teacher, "I think you have. Run up and match it 
 
 That's it. What does it say? .... Put it in place," and so on 
 until all the strips were returned, the children being more success- 
 ful as they grasped the idea of the game. 
 
 Test showed children knew location but not form of a word. — The 
 period was now almost over. A little test or demonstration of 
 what the children knew and did not know came when Miss Hardy 
 said, "I see the word 'Jack' some other place in this room. I 
 wonder who can find it." The children looked around and located 
 
8 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL [September 
 
 a picture cut from a magazine showing a boy going to school with 
 his father. Under the picture Miss Hardy had printed on a card 
 in large letters : 
 
 This is Jack. 
 
 He is going to school. 
 
 One of the children who volunteered was asked to hold a short 
 strip of cardboard under the word "Jack." Instead he held it 
 under "This is." Why? Because in the rh>Tne, "Jack" was 
 always at the beginning of the line, and this child had an idea of 
 its location but not of its form. "Come to the rhyme and find 
 'Jack,' " said Miss Hardy. "That's right. Now look at it closely 
 and then find the same word on the other card." This time the 
 child succeeded easily, and the class was turned over to the gym- 
 nasium teacher for a period of outdoor play. 
 
 THIRD DAY WITH "jACK BE NIMBLE'' 
 BEGINNING "jACK AND JILL" 
 
 Review reading of rhyme and lines. — Next day, after the children 
 had "hopped" to their chairs, the rhyme was reviewed as follows: 
 
 First, individual children were given a chance to read the whole 
 chart through, advancing to it and holding a long strip of card- 
 board under each line as read. 
 
 Miss Hardy then inserted the separate lines in the rack as she 
 got responses to her questions, "WTiat will the line say that I 
 put in first ? " " WTiat will the next line say ? " 
 
 Pupil became '^teacher" in game of blinding eyes and guessing 
 removed line. — Miss Hardy then said, "We are going to play again 
 the game in which you blind your eyes and somebody takes out a 
 strip and you find which one it is. Only, this time we will let a 
 child be the teacher." She then called on a child who advanced 
 to the rack and proceeded as follows: (i) Said, "Blind your eyes." 
 (2) Took out a line. (3) Whispered to the teacher what the line 
 said. (4) Said, "Ready." (5) The children held up their hands. 
 (6) She called on Mary. (7) Mary named the right line, was 
 given the strip, matched it with the corresponding line on the full 
 chart, returned it to the rack, and in turn became the "teacher." 
 Three children were given turns in this game. 
 
iS,2i] HOW TO TEACH BEGINNING READING 9 
 
 Blackboard activity for all in rhythmic dravdng to rhyme. — 
 "Now," said Miss Hardy, "we are all going to the blackboard and 
 make Jack jumping over the candlestick. I have marked off spaces 
 for children on the side board. Count the spaces. How many 
 are there ? . . . . How many children are there ? . . . . How 
 many more spaces do we need ? .... All right, I will mark off 
 four more on the front board." The children then went to the 
 board. They were asked each to show his right hand and left 
 hand, as some were not sure which was which; to take the chalk 
 in the right hand; to draw a candlestick in the middle of the space; 
 then to start the chalk at the left side of the space and as they 
 recited the rh>-me to draw the curved lines to show Jack jumping 
 back and forth. 
 
 "Jack and Jill" told by children and played at blackboard.-- 
 The children then returned to their seats, and the teacher said, 
 "I am thinking of another verse that has Jack in it. Can you 
 think of one? Mine begins 'Jack and,'" whereupon several of 
 the children were ready immediately with "Jill, went up the hill," 
 etc. "WTio will show us at the blackboard the hill with Jack and 
 Jill going up and tumbling down, something like we showed Jack 
 jumping over the candlestick?" The first child to go to the 
 board made a curve resembling two hill tops. After some further 
 trials the class agreed on a curve like the first line of the letter //, 
 and all went to their places at the board and practiced it rhythmi- 
 cally while saying in unison the complete rhyme about Jack and Jill. 
 
 Written on blackboard by teacher as children dictate. — Then the 
 pupils returned to their chairs, and the teacher suggested that 
 she write the rh>'me on the board and prepare a chart of it for the 
 ne.\t day. They first recited the rh)-me in unison, and then Miss 
 Hardy said she would write it as they told her what to write. 
 "What shall I write first?" The children said "Jack and Jill 
 went up the hill." This was written as two short lines thus: 
 Jack and Jill 
 Went up the hill. 
 
 Why ? We shall see later. The children eagerly anticipated each 
 succeeding line and volunteered joyful remarks about "how long" 
 some of the lines were. 
 
lO THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL [September 
 
 Children read rhyme while running pointer under each line. — 
 A few minutes remained for reading the whole rhj-me through, 
 one child, with Miss Hardy's assistance, running a pointer under 
 each line as it was read. "Tomorrow," said the teacher, "we 
 shall have this rhyme printed for you on a chart." 
 
 POUKTH DAY OF RHYME READING. CHART OF "jACK AND JILL" 
 
 Free conversation about the picture. — When the chart was dis- 
 played the next day the children volunteered various remarks 
 about the picture which was at the top, such as, "Jack is tumbling 
 down." "Jill hasn't tumbled yet." Miss Hardy added comments 
 about the "heavy pail of water," the "steep hill." etc. 
 
 Chart read as in case of "Jack be nimble." — The chart was then 
 read in a manner similar to the reading of the candlestick chart, 
 as suggested briefly in the following memoranda. 
 
 1. Whole in unison. — "Let's all read it together," said Miss 
 Hardy, and they proceeded as she held a long strip of cardboard 
 under each line. 
 
 2. Whole by one pupil; praise for good reading. — "Florence, 
 
 come and read. Hold the cardboard under each line That's 
 
 fine. We can always hear Florence because she reads so clearly." 
 
 3. "Finding the line that says." Mild rebuke for irresponsible 
 child. — " Who sees the line that says, ' Went up the hill ? ' " Mary 
 raised her hand and was called on but was not ready. "You 
 must always see the line before you hold up your hand." Several 
 lines were practiced in this way, a child advancing, placing the 
 cardboard under the desired line, and reading it. 
 
 4. Inserting separate strips in rack. Children on watch for 
 mistakes. — "Now, all stand up. Here I have each line on a sepa- 
 rate strip Let's see if I have enough. How many lines are 
 
 on the chart? .... Count my strips Which one must 
 
 I put in first ? . . . . Now I am going to put in the others rapicily, 
 and you must watch to see that I don't make any mistakes." 
 Miss Hardy then purposely inserted "Broke his crown" before 
 "Jack fell down." The brighter children soon discovered this and 
 suggested the correct change. Seats were then resumed. 
 
 5. Blinding eyes and finding removed line. — They then plaj-ed 
 twice the game of having the class blind their eyes while one child 
 
i(,2i] HOW TO TEACH BEGEWING READING II 
 
 took out of the rack, a line which the class then proceeded to dis- 
 cover on the chart. 
 
 New stage; learning individual words. Children matched word 
 cards with words in rhyme. — The teaching then proceeded to an 
 entirely new stage as Miss Hardy produced a pack of cards upon 
 each of which was printed a word in large letters. The words 
 were "Jack," "went," "hill," "water," "up," "down," "fell," 
 "after," and "over," the last word being brought in from the 
 candlestick rhjTne. She said, "You see these cards. They are 
 not lines. They are just words. Some are taken from the first 
 line; some are from the second line. John, here is one for you. 
 Your word is in the first line. See if you can find it. Florence, 
 your word is in the second line." Each child was given a card 
 until all were supplied. "Study your line carefully to find a word 
 that looks just like yours. As soon as you find it, raise your 
 
 hand All right. Hands down. We will begin with Arthur. 
 
 When I call your name, run up to the chart, hold your card under 
 the right word and tell us what it is. Now, Arthur." 
 
 Matched correctly but could not name. Reading as far as matclied 
 word. — Arthur matched the word "went" correctly in the first 
 line but when Miss Hardy asked, "What does it say?" he could 
 not tell. By reading the line from the beginning, however, he 
 easily found what it said. The next child matched "hill" cor- 
 rectly but called it "Jill." Miss Hardy helped her to point at 
 each word from the beginning of the rhyme as teacher and child 
 read rapidly and smoothly as far as "hill." The next child was 
 taught "up" in the same way. "All watch carefully," said Miss 
 Hardy, "for you may have to find this same word later." 
 
 Flash drill with cards called "moving-picture show." — The period 
 then concluded with a rapid "flashing" of the cards by the teacher, 
 a game which they called their " moving-picture show." "Remem- 
 ber, " said the teacher, "as I bring each card from the back of the 
 pack, you watch it carefully, and just as soon as I place it on the 
 front, you tell me what it is." 
 
 rimi DAY OF RirVHE READING 
 
 Principally drill games with word cards and rhyme chart. — After 
 the preliminaries of getting seated the next day. Miss Hardy 
 
12 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURN.\L [September 
 
 said, "I have so many games for you today that we must do them 
 quickly. First we will read the whole rh}Tne. We will let Alice 
 do it because she has such a good, clear voice." 
 
 After this reading, they played very briefly "finding the line 
 which says." 
 
 Each child was given a word card to match and name. Appropri- 
 ate hygienic remarks and praise. — Next, each child was given a word 
 card and told to find the same word in a given line on the chart. 
 After all had their hands up except two children, Miss Hardy 
 said to these, "You watch and we will help you later. Hands 
 down," and the game proceeded as on the day before. Incidental 
 remarks were made about keeping the cards away from the mouth 
 and face and holding them correctly. To the child who had 
 "Jack," Miss Hardy said, "See how many 'Jacks' you can find," 
 and when he had found four, " Good for you." When a boy found 
 the word "water" quickly and said it, appropriate praise was 
 bestowed. Then to the class she said, "Everyone look at this 
 word and say it." 
 
 Special devices for some words. — To the cards for "up" and 
 "down" special attention was called. "Children, look at these 
 two words. The short one is 'up'; the longer one is 'down.' 
 When you play see-saw you go up and down [making appropriate 
 gestures with the corresponding word card]. I am going to mix 
 these two words up. See if you can tell me quickly which one I 
 show you," proceeding to flash "up" and "down" several times. 
 Similarly, devices were employed with the words "after" and 
 "over" which were giving special difficulty. 
 
 " Moving-picturc-show" game again. — The children then stood 
 up while the "moving-picture-show" game was run off by flashing 
 the cards. 
 
 Teacher inserted individual words in rack as pupils named each. — 
 The children being seated. Miss Hardy said, "Now, I am going 
 to put these words in the rack. They will be all mixed up, and as 
 soon as I place a word I want you to tell me what it is." 
 
 Naming each word as teacher points. Pupils on qui vive for 
 speed. — This process finished, she said, "As I place an eraser 
 under each word, say it. See if you can say it so fast I can hardly 
 
IS>2l] HOW TO TEACH BEGINNING READING 13 
 
 keep ahead of you That's fine; but if you don't know 
 
 them, don't say them. 
 
 Pujnl pointed at all words and named all correctly.— "Now 
 Harry may say all the words as he holds the eraser under each. 
 Wasn't that fine ? He said every word right. Let's clap for him." 
 
 Blinding the eyes and then finding the word pointed at. — The 
 reading lesson then concluded with a new "blind-the-eyes" game. 
 One child blinded his eyes in the corner. Another ran to the rack, 
 held an eraser under one word, e.g., "over," returned to his seat, 
 and said, "Ready." The child from the comer stepped to the rack 
 and, placing the eraser under each word in turn, said, "Is it 
 'water'?" In unison the children answered, "No, it is not 
 'water,' " and so on until he said, "Is it 'over'?" whereupon they 
 clapped their hands and cried, "Yes, it is 'over'." 
 
 Tlie "old-cat-is-aslcep'' game; activity, fun, moral training. — As 
 a matter of relaxation and physical activity, the teacher then 
 introduced the children to a game that seemed to the observer to 
 be merely a child's game (i.e., not a game for teaching reading), 
 namely, a game called "the old cat is asleep." This is a form of 
 the musical chair game. The children played it twice with zest, 
 and as some of them tended to run to the chairs before the last 
 word of "cannot catch us " was said, Miss Hardy made an appropri- 
 ate remark about "plaving fair." 
 
 Nine separate words learned by si'g/;/.— Subtracting such relaxa- 
 tion activities, about fifteen minutes of actual reading activity 
 had been obser\'ed. The children had acquired by this time 
 greater familiarity with the printed lines and knew with fair 
 accuracy the nine separate words which scarcely any of them had 
 been able to name shortly before the end of the reading period of 
 the previous day. 
 
 SIXTH DAY OP RHYICE READING 
 
 "The old cat is asleep." — Unexjiectedly to the obser^'er, the 
 next day's reading period began with the new game "the old cat 
 is asleep" which had been jilayed the day before. After jilaying 
 the game again, Miss Hardy produced a chart with the picture 
 of "the old cat" and the lines: 
 
14 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL [September 
 
 The old cat is asleep, 
 The old cat is asleep, 
 The old cat is fast asleep, 
 And cannot catch us. 
 
 Strips cut up before children's eyes to obtain phrases and words. — 
 The reading lesson with this material followed the same plan as 
 the preceding ones, namely, first reading it as a whole, then finding 
 individual lines, then drill on single phrases and words. This 
 time Miss Hardy cut up the separate strips or lines before the 
 children's eyes to obtain the individual word cards. 
 
 Examples of special aid to slow pupils. — This process helped 
 some of the children considerably, for while some had succeeded 
 admirably in every activity, from reading the whole to matching 
 and naming individual words, other children were making very 
 slow progress. For example, one child could not understand the 
 term "last word." Miss Hardy said to him, "Tell me the last 
 word in this line," as she pointed to and read, "The old cat is 
 fast asleep." The child said, "The old cat is fast asleep." "No, 
 dear," said Miss Hardy, "I want just the last word. Now listen 
 for it as I say the line," which she did while pointing at each 
 word in turn. Again from the child, the same answer, "The old 
 cat is fast asleep." 
 
 Another example of a slow child occurred in identifying the word 
 "old." The child had been given the word card for "old" and was 
 trying to match it on either chart, the whole one or the cut-up one 
 in the rack. He had five chances, five "olds" before his eyes, and 
 he could not find one. Miss Hardy took the phrase "The old 
 cat" from the rack. She read it with the child. Then she cut 
 off "The" and asked what was left. Then she cut off "cat" and 
 asked what was left. The child said "old" and seemed to know 
 it. He matched it correctly with the five "olds" which remained 
 in the chart and rack. Miss Hardy then gave the work a "for- 
 ward look," a device which she frequently used, by saying to the 
 class, "When we come to read in our story books we want to be 
 sure about this word "old" because we shall read about the old 
 woman, the old man, and the old cat many times." After about 
 two minutes of practice or "game" with the last line, "And cannot 
 
ton] HOW TO TEACH BEGINNING READING 15 
 
 catch us," Miss Hardy returned to the child who had been given 
 special practice with "old." Holding up the "old" card she asked, 
 "WTiat does this say?" "Can," said the boy. Such are the 
 difficulties encountered by and with slow learners — difficulties that 
 call for the most watchful, sympathetic, patient, and persistent 
 individual attention from the teacher. 
 
 SUBSEQUENT SPECrFlC READING LESSONS WITH OTHER TYPES OP MATERIAL 
 
 Goldilocks and the three bears. — While the rhyme reading de- 
 scribed above was being carried on during the reading periods, the 
 children had been concerned during the literature and construction 
 periods with the experiences of Goldilocks and the three bears. 
 The pupils had constructed in the sand jian a paper house for the 
 three bears, and had surrounded it with twigs and leaves to 
 represent a forest through which roamed, hand in hand, three 
 plasticine bears. 
 
 Manila-paper book oj reading selections made by each child to 
 show parents. — Each child had also made a book from manila 
 paper in which to paste the verses and stories which they had been 
 reading, "so they could take them home to read to mama and 
 papa." Each child's copy of a jingle or story was printed by 
 Miss Hardy who set up rubber letters in a wooden tyi)e holder, 
 thus making a rubber stamp from which the necessary cojiies could 
 easily be made. 
 
 Pupils composed story of the three bears to paste in book. — \\Tien 
 it came to j>utting the "three bears" story in the books, the class 
 spent some time in boiling it down to a few short lines that would 
 best tell just what they had done. They finally chose these: 
 
 We made a house. 
 It is in the woods. 
 We made three bears. 
 
 One is a big bear. 
 
 One is a middle-sized bear. 
 
 One is a little bear. 
 
 Reading practice with this material as with nursery rhymes. — 
 The reading practice with this material followed the same general 
 lines as described for the nursery rhymes. 
 
l6 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURX.\L 
 
 Five weeks of gameful pre-primer blackborad and chart reading 
 to initiate correct reading attitudes and habits. — Such gameful chart 
 reading, gradually merging with reading of the same materials 
 pasted in the books which they made, constituted the reading 
 activity of the first five or sLx weeks. It is one example of the 
 common practice in progressive schools and reading systems of 
 giving considerable pre-primer reading before a regularly printed 
 book is begun. So many fundamental principles of psychology 
 and methods of teaching reading are involved that we shall now 
 turn to the systematic exposition of them as illustrated by ]\Iiss 
 Hardy's lessons. Then we shall describe concretely the second 
 and third stages in developing skill in reading, namely, training 
 in reading in a printed book, and training in the independent 
 recognition of new words. The first stage, with which we are 
 now concerned, is intended to initiate certain correct reading 
 attitudes and habits which may persist throughout the pupils' 
 later reading in and out of school. In the next instalment we shall 
 present nine principles or rules which justify the detailed devices 
 for teaching pre-primer blackboard and chart reading as described. 
 
ARTICLE II 
 
 II. PRE-PRIMER BLACKBOARD AND CHART READING 
 [Continued] 
 
 B. PRINCIPLES 
 
 I. Iniliale correct reading altitudes; not mere word-calling. — 
 Perhaps the most important principle of teaching reading which is 
 illustrated by Miss Hardy's pre-primer lessons is the necessity of 
 giving the pupils a correct attitude toward the reading material. 
 We may easily illustrate what we mean by using a negative example, 
 namely, we do not want the child to form the attitude of merely 
 trying to pronounce words without regard for their meanings. Yet 
 this was the dominant attitude of first-grade children in much of 
 the old-fashioned teaching of reading, in which a child stood up 
 with a book in his hand and, with his eye glued upon each word in 
 turn, haltingly read, "This"— "is"— "a"— "cat." 
 
 Varieties of reading attitudes; poetry versus headlines, "funnies" 
 versus Gettysburg address. — Just how to define or describe the correct 
 initial reading attitude is slightly difficult because the attitudes 
 differ somewhat with different types of reading material. For 
 e.xample, contrast the attitudes in reading poetry and in rapidly 
 scanning a newspaper column. In the poetry reading your attitude 
 is likely to include enjoying the hit and swing of the rhythm, and 
 your reading, consequently, will include careful rhythmic phrasing. 
 In the newspaper scanning your attitude is one of neglecting much 
 of the material and actively "grabbing off" a few ideas or state- 
 ments. Another e.\ample of contrasting attitudes in reading is 
 found in reading the "funnies" in the newspaper and reading 
 Lincoln's Gettysburg address. We do not need to describe the 
 
1 8 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL [October 
 
 different attitudes in these two cases, since they are so ob\dously 
 different. The emotional "set" of our mind in the case of reading 
 the "funnies" is such that it shocks us to think of approaching 
 Lincohi's address with the same attitude. 
 
 Gelling meaningful and inleresting experiences from the earliest 
 reading. — These variations in reading attitudes become of very 
 great practical importance in training in skilled reading; for 
 example, training a pupil to enjoy reading poetry involves a very 
 different type of practice from training him to scan a newspaper 
 column economical!}' and efifectively. As related to training in 
 various types of skilled silent reading, such variations in reading 
 attitudes should be discussed in great detail. For our present 
 purposes, however, it is sufficient to note that perhaps the biggest 
 factor in determining Miss Hardy's method of approaching reading 
 is the desire to make it as much like real reading as possible from 
 the very beginning. In such real reading, the attitude of getting 
 some type of meaningful and interesting experience from the 
 printed material is a dominant feature. 
 
 2. Meaningful content necessary. Action words, incidental read- 
 ing. — In order to develop the attitude of getting meaning from 
 printed material, it is necessary to select content that is especially 
 suited to this purpose. The simple action words with which Miss 
 Hardy began furnish an admirable example, for, when such words 
 as "hop" and "skip" are written on the board as commands, not 
 only does the attention center on the meaning, but the pupil must 
 grasp the meaning before he can execute the command. Similarly, 
 when such words as "barn" or "house" appear on the plan of the 
 farm which is to be made in the sand pan, the attention naturally 
 centers on their meaning. 
 
 Nursery rhymes give a complex experience which constitutes their 
 meaning. — When we come to the nursery rhymes, however, the 
 meanings to be gotten from the reading become much more com- 
 plex, since the whole complex experience of a child's enjoyment of 
 a nursery rhyme is involved. This experience consists of much 
 more than understanding the individual words or even under- 
 standing all the phrases. This fact may be illustrated by the 
 reading experiences of a colleague who says that at least once a 
 
rg2i\ HOW TO TEACH BEGINNING READING IQ 
 
 year he gets hungry to read certain of Poe's poems, and, conse- 
 quently, has read them many times. "Yet," he says, "for the 
 Hfe of me, I can't tell what Poe is talking about in several places." 
 Similarly, in teaching children to read "Jack and Jill" we are 
 concerned primarily with giving them the big reading experiences 
 which children naturally get from such material. Necessarily, this 
 will include an understanding of most of the words and phrases 
 such as "went up the hill" and "came tumbling after." The 
 picture above the rh\Tne helps some children in getting these ideas. 
 It would hardly be desirable, however, to dwell at any length on 
 the meaning of "broke his crown." In fact, I have often wondered 
 what notion a child associates with this phrase. Certainly, it would 
 not be pleasing to give him a vivid, gruesome picture of a child 
 with a broken head. 
 
 "Meaningful content" and "meaningful experience" need broad 
 interpretation. — These simple examples help us to get farther and 
 farther away from the practice of mere word-pronouncing as 
 characteristic of reading. We are dissatisfied not only with mere 
 word-pronouncing, but also with mere understanding of isolated 
 words and phrases. What we need in the reading of continuous 
 material, from the very first lessons, is the grasp of large meanings, 
 the enjoyment of complex experiences which go far beyond the 
 meanings of the individual words that relate them. Among the 
 most characteristic of such experiences in childhood are those 
 associated with nursery rhj-mes. By introducing these early into 
 the reading, we are providing the child with meaningful content, 
 the total significance of which he readily grasps, and the detailed 
 words and phrases of which he sufhciently understands. 
 
 3. Delightful content cultivates the desire to read. — The reading 
 attitude which we should endeavor to cultivate in children includes 
 not only the tendency to grasp the meaning of printed material, but 
 also an active desire to read more and more. Wc want the pupil 
 to feel that reading furnishes delightful experiences. We want to 
 cultivate in him the tendency to take up books and read them with 
 the same spontaneity and zeal with which he enters into games, or 
 the same entranced delight with which he listens to a story being 
 told. This furnishes another reason for the choice of interesting 
 
20 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOXHINAL [OcUjber 
 
 nursery rhymes or such stories as "Goldilocks and the Three 
 Bears." When we come to the primer reading, we shall see how 
 thoroughly this idea is being carried out by fiJUng the books with 
 all the treasures of childhood's fairyland of myth and fable, adven- 
 ture and romance. 
 
 4. Get the whole thought of experience, then subdivide for reading 
 practice. — From the idea expressed, namely, that reading from the 
 very beginning should present meaningful interesting experiences 
 to children, it follows naturally that the reading of any one selection 
 should begin with its fundamental story features. After these have 
 been adequately treated, then the content may be subdivided for a 
 number of forms of reading practice. In Miss Hardy's lessons we 
 find the following steps are taken in proceeding from the whole story 
 to the study of individual words: (a) The pupils learn the whole 
 nursery rhyme or compose orally the whole story of Goldilocks in 
 the exact words in which it is later to be read, (b) They tell the 
 teacher exactly how to write the whole story on the board, (c) 
 They read the story as a whole, (d) They learn to recognize 
 individual Hnes and phrases, (e) They learn to recognize and 
 remember the individual words. 
 
 The lessons which we described show that much of the refined 
 technique of teaching pre-primer reading depends upon the skilful 
 carrying out of the foregoing processes in the order indicated. 
 The prospective teacher of first-grade reading should study Miss 
 Hardy's devices, from this point of view, in great detail. For our 
 more general purposes we may note briefly three features of her 
 practice, namely, (a) the careful preparatory steps before presenting 
 the printed or written whole, (b) the training of pupils to recognize 
 individual lines and phrases, and (c) the necessity and value of 
 familiarizing them with individual words. 
 
 Careful preparation before reading includes exact memorizing of 
 rhymes or stories. — The exact memorizing of the rhyme or story 
 before reading it is necessary in order that there may be no con- 
 fusion when the reading begins. For example, when the children 
 first recited "Jack and Jill," some of them said "fetch" and others 
 said "get a pail of water." By adopting one of these and discarding 
 the other, the chance for a confusing association was avoided. 
 
192'] HOW TO TEACH BEGINNING READING a I 
 
 Moreover, in the case of children from illiterate or poor or non- 
 literary families, there are sure to be some who are unfamiliar with 
 the rhyme. The result of such careful preparation is that all the 
 children have the full meaning and oral statement exactly in mind 
 and are intensely interested in telling the teacher what to write. 
 They are thus prepared to read it as an interesting, meaningful 
 whole. As suggested, this constitutes one of the finest points in 
 the expert teaching of the first lessons in reading and is in striking 
 contrast with the child's first experiences in the old-fashioned 
 teaching of reading in which he haltingly attacked individual words 
 and struggled through hours of meaningless drudgery. 
 
 Children may easily learn to recognize short phrases as wholes. 
 An important reading attitude. — After the whole rhyme or story had 
 been written or printed. Miss Hardy conducted a number of games 
 in which the children handled, read, and recognized individual lines 
 or phrases. The possibility of recognizing such units has long 
 been a well-known fact to psychologists and is easily proved by 
 the success of the children in doing it. The justification for making 
 it the second step in the reading of the rhyme is the desire to train 
 pupils to think in such large meaningful units while reading. This 
 is another factor in establishing correct reading attitudes which we 
 have emphasized throughout the discussion. In skilled continuous 
 reading, we do not read by words alone, but rather in units of 
 meaning of which the single words are merely the skeleton structure. 
 While the beginning pupil must go through many years of practice 
 before he can reach the general facility in phrase recognition that 
 characterizes the skilful, trained reader, he can learn some phrases 
 at the very beginning; and, more important still, he can make the 
 modest beginnings of a reading attitude or reading habit which will 
 prove of vital importance later. A detail of Miss Hardy's tech- 
 nique which illustrates her careful thought about the pupils' 
 possibilities in phrase recognition is found in her writing of the 
 first Unes of "Jack and Jill." When the children told her to write 
 "Jack and Jill went up the hill," she skilfully broke it into two 
 lines, thus. 
 
 Jack and Jill 
 
 Went up the hill. 
 
22 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL [October 
 
 It is obvious that the two phrase units which are thus secured 
 are much better suited for recognition by beginning readers than 
 the single long line in which they were combined. 
 
 Word recognition necessary and possible. — It is ob\ious, however, 
 that we need to go farther than phrase recognition and familiarize 
 the pupil with individual words in order that he maj' use these as 
 tools wherever they appear in his reading. For example, the child 
 who has learned the word "Jack" in "Jack be nimble" can use it 
 as an aid in learning "Jack and Jill." Similarly, he can use other 
 single words from the first rh>Tne in reading the second one, such as 
 "the " and "and." The possibility of learning such individual words 
 "by sight" is another item ascertained by the psychologists at the 
 same time that they found out about phrase recognition. The 
 obvious success of children in doing it leaves no doubt of the 
 possibility. During their pre-primer reading in Miss Hardy's 
 room, most of the children became thoroughly familiar with many 
 sight words which they could recognize and use in reading new 
 material. 
 
 Four principles summarized: correct attitudes; meaningful con- 
 tent; desire to read; analytical learning. — The four principles of 
 teaching reading which we have discussed up to this point maj' be 
 summarized as follows: (i) Pre-primer reading should initiate the 
 correct reading attitude of trjdng to get meaningful and interesting 
 experiences from printed or written material. (2) To cultivate 
 this attitude, content such as action words and nursery rhymes 
 should be selected which entices the pupils to focus their attention 
 upon the meanings. (3) The attitude of desiring to read is also 
 initiated by the intense interest which children attach to nursery 
 rhymes and stories. (4) In beginning the reading of any selection, 
 the whole thought or experience should receive first attention; 
 then the material may be subdivided into lines, phrases, and 
 individual words for reading practice. These points describe the 
 method of approaching reading that is securing more and more 
 general adoption in progressive elementary schools. We shall now 
 consider certain further general principles of teaching as they apply 
 to the teaching of reading and were illustrated in Miss Hardy's 
 lessons. 
 
IQ2I] HOW TO TEACH BEGINNING READING 23 
 
 5. A single center of attention is secured by chart and blackboard 
 reading. — When a class has its first reading lessons from a book 
 instead of the blackboard or a chart, it is difficult for the teacher 
 to make sure that the children are all giving their attention to the 
 line or phrase or word which is being discussed. On the other hand, 
 with the material on the blackboard or on a chart, it is easy for the 
 teacher or a child to point at a certain portion of it and direct the 
 attention of all interested pupils to the same point. This is one of 
 the greatest advantages of using a blackboard in any kind of 
 instruction, and every teacher should become skilled in blackboard 
 writing and drawing and be resourceful in devising occasions to 
 secure attention and clarify ideas by these means. In the complex 
 activities which Miss Hardy directed, it is obvious that much of 
 the success depended upon the single objective center which 
 secured immediate, spontaneous, and rapt attention of most of 
 the pupils. 
 
 6. Special equipment of charts and word cards improves technique. 
 — The use of a chart as the single objective center of attention in 
 the first reading lessons is merely one example of the enormous 
 improvements that are made possible in teaching by slight enrich- 
 ments or modifications of the equipment. In the case of teaching 
 reading, other important items are the single lines on separate 
 strips and the word cards. With the single lines on long strips, 
 Miss Hardy had some difficulty until she found the special rack 
 into which they could be easily fitted. This rack is known as the 
 "Plymouth Chart" and consists of a long sheet of paper with 
 horizontal ledges or grooves into which the strips can be easily 
 inserted, even by the children who naturally take delight in doing 
 it. Most of the commercialized reading systems now furnish 
 charts and word cards for their early lessons. In case a resourceful 
 teacher desires to compose her own lessons, as Miss Hardy did, she 
 may procure an outfit of large t>'pe, such as is used by merchants 
 in printing signs, and sheets of manila tag board, 23J by 283 inches. 
 In view of the complex responsibilities which confront a teacher 
 in her first year of teaching, it would probably be well for the 
 beginner to use some of the ready-made materials which are in 
 accord with the principles of teaching reading here described. 
 
24 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL [October 
 
 Bulletin board for incidental reading. — The beginner may supple- 
 ment such ready-made material -with a variety of homemade 
 charts, some of which may be thumb-tacked on the bulletin board, 
 another important item of equipment. The surface of the bulletin 
 board is best made of sheet cork. As noted in the first article, a 
 "line for the day" makes attractive incidental reading matter to 
 bulletin; also pictures cut from magazines and illustrating some 
 of the activities of the class may be used to good effect. To these 
 pictures may be added attractive legends in large letters. In case 
 a teacher does not possess a printing outfit, or lacks the time to 
 use it, she may easily acquire skill in lettering with black crayon 
 sufficient to dash off these legends very rapidly. Even in very 
 poor circumstances, a bulletin situation could be devised by using 
 a corner of the blackboard and writing with chalk. 
 
 7. Organize interesting activities, particularly gatnes, with the 
 reading materials. — Some educators have believed that the desire 
 to read is sufficient in itself to maintain the interest necessary for 
 acquiring skill in reading. It takes only a little knowledge of the 
 complexity and difficulty of the process of learning reading, how- 
 ever, to show us that very few children would acquire sufficient 
 skill merely from this motive. Moreover, as already pointed out, 
 the desire to read is not a condition which we assume to e.xist in 
 the pupils, but is to be a product of our teaching of reading in such 
 a manner as to make all reading experiences delightful. In the 
 discussion of this point, the opportunities for providing inherently 
 delightful material for the pupils were stressed as a means to aid in 
 creating the desire to read throughout life. Our present point is 
 to emphasize interesting activities with this material as a means of 
 securing the attentive practice and repetition which are necessary 
 to create automatic skill in reading. 
 
 Practice sugar-coated with games; the open sesame of childhood. — 
 The greatest basis of interesting practice activities in pre-primer 
 reading is the pupils' intense interest in games. The phrase "play 
 a game" is the open-sesame charm which progressive teachers now 
 use throughout the grades to secure rapt attention in all types of 
 practice — in handwriting, spelling, reading, arithmetic, and lan- 
 guage. Attentive effective practice and learning can be secured 
 
igii] HOW TO TEACH BEGINNING READING 2$ 
 
 with all kinds of educative materials provided they are sugar- 
 coated with games which require concentrated attention upon the 
 educative activities. Miss Hardy's lessons abounded in illustra- 
 tions. The children played the game of "finding the line which 
 says," gave close attention to the several lines as an essential part 
 of the game, and learned to recognize the lines readily as the 
 educative result. In the "moving-picture-show" game of flashing 
 cards, the pupils were eagerly expectant and raptly attentive to 
 each card as flashed, and learned to name the words rapidly and 
 automatically as the educative result. The begirming teacher of 
 first-grade reading should study carefully such gameful devices for 
 securing interest and attentive educative practice. 
 
 8. Drill games require alertness and refined leaching technique. — 
 The effective conduct of drill games demands considerable automatic 
 skill from the teacher. I was impressed with this fact in watching 
 a practice teacher in the first grade. She had planned about six 
 little games with word cards to consume about ten minutes. In 
 order that she might keep her games in mind, she had written in 
 an obscure corner of the side board a list of them in letters very 
 small but sufficiently large for her to see. As a consequence, she 
 was able to keep her program in mind and maintain the zeal and 
 "pep" which are characteristic of active games. While she did 
 quite well in her teaching, I could feel the same contrast between 
 her technique and Miss Hardy's that one feels between the move- 
 ments of a beginner in skating or basket ball, on the one hand, and 
 the smoothly moving professional in these activities, on the other 
 hand. 
 
 Q. Careful attention to individual differences in capacity to learn 
 reading. Grouping first-graders according to ability. — As a final 
 principle to be noted in discussing pre-primer reading, we may note 
 the necessity of adapting the teaching to the varied abilities of 
 the pupils. In the preceding article we noted cases of two espe- 
 cially slow pupils, one who couldn't pick out the "last word" in a 
 line and the other who failed to recognize the word "old" two 
 minutes after he had been given thorough drill upon it. At the 
 opposite e.xtreme, we find children of five years of age who have a 
 natural talent for learning to read and do so with little difticulty. 
 
26 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL [October 
 
 In progressive first grades, during the pre-primer reading, the 
 pupils are carefully studied and grouped and regrouped according 
 to the abilities they exhibit in learning to read. For example, 
 Miss Hardy's group which was observed was the brighter of two 
 groups that had been given no previous instruction in reading. At 
 the end of five weeks of pre-primer reading, the slower group was 
 about one week behind this brighter group. An even more 
 advanced group consisted of children who had been instructed in 
 reading in the kindergarten. 
 
 Skill from pre-primer reading makes book reading easy. — In 
 general, the scientific studies of the maturing of children's abilities, 
 as well as the success of progressive, gameful methods of teaching 
 pre-primer reading, demonstrate that most children are mature 
 enough to learn the art of easy reading at sLx years of age. In the 
 blackboard and chart reading, these children experience httle or 
 no difiiculty. When they come to book reading, the skill which 
 they have acquired during the five weeks of pre-primer reading 
 simpHfies their difiiculties enormously, so that with simple, familiar 
 material they readily read page after page with joy and delight. 
 In the next section of the discussion we shall describe concretely 
 Miss Hardy's first lessons with the primer and then discuss the 
 additional principles of teaching reading which these book lessons 
 illustrate. Before turning to the book reading, we may profitably 
 summarize briefly the nine principles of teaching reading presented 
 in this section. 
 
 Summary of rules for teaching pre-primer reading. — These nine 
 rules may be phrased as follows: 
 
 1. Initiate the correct reading attitude of trying to get mean- 
 ingful and interesting experiences from printed material. 
 
 2. Provide meaningful content. 
 
 3. Create a desire to read through delightful interesting content. 
 
 4. Proceed analytically from the whole story to lines and phrases 
 and then to individual words. 
 
 5. Secure a single objective center for the attention of all pupils 
 by begiiming with blackboard or chart reading. 
 
 6. Provide a special equipment of charts, cards, pictures, 
 legends, and a bulletin board to facilitate reading practice. 
 
7P2/1 HOW TO TEACH BEGINNING READING 27 
 
 7. Organize interesting activaties to secure the attentive repe- 
 tition needed to give automatic skill in the elements of reading. 
 
 8. Master the technique of conducting drill games. 
 
 9. Group pupils according to their natural talent or advance- 
 ment in reading and give special individual attention to the slow 
 learners. 
 
 III. BEGINNING BOOK KE/VDING 
 A. SAMPLE LESSONS 
 
 First selection read previously from chart. Easy transition. — The 
 reading from charts which we have described continued in Miss 
 Hardy's room during the first five weeks of school. The transition 
 was then made to reading from a regular "primer." This transi- 
 tion was rendered easy by having the last chart contain the first 
 story of the primer in exactly the same form. 
 
 FAUIUAEIZING POPILS WITH THE NEW BOOKS 
 
 Children eager to possess and read the promised books. — Before 
 beginning the first lesson with the books, Miss Hardy asked, "What 
 was it I said we were going to have today?" "Books!" cried the 
 children, "Where are they?" and other exclamations in joyous 
 tones. "Shall I get them?" queried Miss Hardy. "Yes! yes!" 
 The teacher then brought out the pile of new books, and the class 
 counted the children and the books and found one book too many. 
 This was laid aside for an absent child. 
 
 Compared with pasted books and similar home copies. — Miss 
 Hardy held up one copy and said: "See, this book has a name just 
 as we have names for the books we have been making. The name 
 here is 'Primer.' Here are also the names of the two people who 
 wrote the stories for us, and here is the name of the person who 
 made all the nice pictures in it." Many of the children recognized 
 the book as one their older brothers or sisters had owned and 
 volunteered, "We have a book at home just like that," or similar 
 comments. "I shall give each child a book," said Miss Hardy. 
 "Look through it quickly to see if there is anything you know." 
 
 Children jreely examined books and volunteered comments. — Upon 
 receiving the books there were many exclamations. "Oh! there 
 is the Gingerbread Boy," "My pages are all stuck together," "I 
 can read this story," etc. 
 
28 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL [October 
 
 Child's request for certain story led to table of contents. — One boy 
 wanted to know if a certain story was in the book. The teacher 
 told him to look at the table of contents, then asked all the children 
 to look. Some of the children began to count the titles of the 
 stories in the table of contents. About five minutes were consumed 
 in permitting the children such random, spontaneous activity with 
 the book. 
 
 Manila line-marker to each child; table of contents read. — Miss 
 Hardy then brought the group to attention by saying, "Look up 
 here, everyone. I am going to give you each a marker," showing 
 a strip of durable manila paper about 4 inches long and i inch wide. 
 "Place it under the name of the first story, and then move it down 
 as I read each name The first line says what?" The chil- 
 dren gave this title as they had learned it on the chart. "And what 
 page ?" The children answered correctly. The teacher then read 
 each succeeding line, meanwhile watching the group closely and 
 assisting slow pupils to move their markers to the appropriate lines. 
 
 READING or FIRST STORY 
 
 Story first told by children from its successive pictures. — "Now all 
 turn to the first story," said the teacher. The children quickly 
 recognized it as the one from the last chart. "Let's all look at 
 
 the pictures together to see if it is the same story we know 
 
 What is happening in the first picture ? . . . . What do you see in 
 the second picture ?" and so on until all the pictures had been 
 examined and the story of each told by the children. 
 
 Rapid reading. Markers moved carefully; line scanned silently; 
 hands raised; chosen pupil read line orally. — "Now turn back to the 
 first page," directed Miss Hardy, "and we shall read the story. 
 .... Put your markers under the title. Always keep your 
 
 markers very still. Read the title Gideon Now put 
 
 your markers under the first line and get ready to tell what it says. 
 
 Read silently John, read it to us Now the next 
 
 line. Move your markers; study it; read silently. Then raise 
 your hand to tell me what it says." As the children proceeded 
 there were exclamations of "I know," etc., and giggles of delight 
 at recognizing the familiar lines. Occasionally the class read a 
 difficult line in unison. Several pages were easily read in a few 
 
I92I] HOW TO TEACH BEGINNING READING 29 
 
 minutes, Miss Hardy showing the children how the story continued 
 from the bottom of a left-hand page to the top of a right-hand 
 page, etc. 
 
 Each child became "responsible" for his own book. — At the end 
 of the hour the teacher said, "Put your markers in the books and 
 close them. Notice how clean your markers are. They will keep 
 clean if you use them only for markers. Each child is responsible 
 for his own book. Do you remember we learned yesterday what 
 'responsible' means? .... Put them in your desks carefully." 
 
 REAOrNG OF SECOND STORY 
 
 Preparation. Dramatic telling by teacher; second telling -unlh 
 new word cards; flash practice with cards. — Reading the second story 
 in the primer marked another step in advance because this was 
 done without preliminary reading of it on a chart. However, 
 careful preparation was made for the new story by spending a whole 
 reading period upon it before opening the books. This preparatory 
 period contained three steps as follows: (i) The teacher told the 
 story in the e.xact words of the book, bringing out clearly its dra- 
 matic interest. (2) She retold it and held up appropriate word 
 cards or phrases which were peculiarly characteristic of the story 
 or repeated frequently in it. (3) She then used these cards in a 
 flash drill, closely relating them to the story by such remarks as, 
 "Don't you remember? This is the name of the second animal 
 he met," etc. 
 
 The reading of this second story on the following day, in the 
 books, proceeded largely as in the case of the first story, according 
 to the following steps: 
 
 Children told the story from the pictures. — About fi\'e minutes 
 were spent in examining the pictures one after another, and having 
 the children tell the story from them. There was much free 
 expression by the children in this stage, but the teacher also, by 
 skilful questioning, got them to u.se many of the exact phrases as 
 they would appear in the reading. 
 
 Actual reading. Markers; units of one or more lines; teacher 
 suggests content of lines; rebukes careless pupil; aids slow pupil; 
 commends good reading. — After e.xamining all the pictures, they 
 
30 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL 
 
 returned to the first page of the story and, using their markers, 
 read systematically through several pages. The following remarks 
 by the teacher will add the local color of the situation. "Turn 
 
 back to the first page Now, if everybody does everything 
 
 just right, we can read far today Read the first line silently ; 
 
 then one of you may read it to the group. It names one of the 
 
 characters in the story Now see what the next sentence 
 
 says The last sentence says what? It begins with 'So.' 
 
 .... Now we have two lines to read together. This is harder, 
 
 isn't it ? But we can do it all right if we use our markers 
 
 The next line tells what he [referring to the hero of the story] does. 
 Are you ready, Allison ? That's the fourth time you dropped your 
 book. When children drop their books four times that means they 
 aren't ready for them. [Allison didn't drop his book again.] The 
 next three lines tell what the boy says. All read silently and then 
 raise your hands. Now all move your markers back and we will 
 
 read these three lines together Does some word puzzle you 
 
 there, John? .... Wait a minute, Franklin, it's this line, here 
 [constantly watching the compact Uttle circle of readers to aid 
 
 individual pupils who were in difl&culty] Good for you, 
 
 Mary, but I could hardly hear you. Read it again." 
 
 Coherent, rapid, meaningful reading. Drill relegated to separate 
 period. — With such coherent group reading, aided by alert attention 
 of the teacher to the needs of individual pupils, the story was 
 rapidly completed. In order to make this type of rapid, mean- 
 ingful reading the dominant activity of the reading period, most 
 of the repetitional drill work on individual words had now been 
 assigned to separate periods which were called "word study." 
 Before turning to a description of this activitj-, we shall discuss 
 some of the general principles of teaching beginning reading which 
 may be illustrated bj' the book lessons described. 
 
ARTICLE ni 
 
 in. BEGINNING BOOK READING 
 [Conlinued] 
 
 B. PRINCIPLES 
 
 1. Secure cantinuous, coherent, rapid, meaningful reading. — The 
 largest factor in determining the nature of the tirst lessons in 
 book reading which were described in the preceding article is 
 probably the desire to continue the formation of correct reading 
 attitudes and habits by facilitating continuous, coherent, rapid, 
 meaningful reading by the pupils. This purpose predominated 
 throughout the pre-priraer reading and is easily realized in the 
 early book lessons as a result of the skill acquired in the pre-primer 
 reading. To the observer who is unfamiliar with progressive methods 
 in teaching reading, it is a revelation to see first-grade children dur- 
 ing their first three or four days with book reading rapidly complete 
 some twenty pages of storied material with interest, comprehension, 
 fluency, and dispatch. 
 
 2. Complexities of first book reading simplified by first reading 
 same story on the chart. — Reading in a book for the first time 
 requires many complex mental and muscular activities of the pupil. 
 These include not only mental attention to the forms of the words, 
 phrases, and sentences, but also dilBculties in holding the book and 
 especially in moving the eyes from word to word and from the 
 end of one line to the beginning of the next. If the pupil has had 
 no preliminary reading practice, it is futile to expect coherent, 
 continuous, smooth reading under such complicated, trying condi- 
 tions. On the other hand, if he has acquiretl some general facility 
 
32 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL [November 
 
 in reading larger printed forms and particularly has read upon a 
 chart the same story that he undertakes to read in the book, the 
 mental difi&culties of coherent reading of this first story are almost 
 entirely removed, leaving only the muscular adjustments of hand 
 and eye to give difficulty. 
 
 3. Continuous, thrilling, storied material encourages page-afler- 
 page reading. — In order to encourage continuous coherent reading, 
 the content of the first book lessons must be of a connected, con- 
 tinuous character. Hence, in the best recent primers we find real 
 stories at the very begiiming, each of which may extend over 
 several pages. Each story has a definite plot which tends to carry 
 the little reader along to the end. Great skill has been exhibited 
 by a number of writers and publishers since about 1910 in composing 
 and publishing such material. The stories are usually classics of 
 childhood, such as "The Three Billy Goats Gruff," "Little Red 
 Riding Hood," "Goldilocks," "The Little Red Hen," and "The 
 Ginger Bread Boy," which have proved fascinating to children for 
 generations. It is an interesting historical fact that while such 
 stories had been contained in reading books for the later grades 
 for many years, it was not until recently that they were introduced 
 into the primers for the first lessons. This introduction came as 
 the result of the acceptance of the general point of view in teaching 
 reading which has been emphasized in these articles, namely, 
 developing attitudes and habits of securing meaningful, interesting 
 experiences from the very beginning of reading. 
 
 4. Repetitional phrases of certain child classics especially facilitate 
 continuous, easy reading. — Since the classic plots of children's 
 stories were already at hand, the skill of the primer writers consisted 
 chiefly in phrasing the narrative so as to facilitate easy reading. 
 Stories constructed on the general plan of "The House that Jack 
 Built" were frequently chosen in order to secure repetition of words 
 and phrases. Such a story usually has some unsolved problem that 
 holds interest to the end and involves one of the characters meeting 
 the others in turn in such a manner as to call for frequent repeti- 
 tion of the whole story up to date. Thus there is a gradual addi- 
 tion of new material or difficulties with frequent repetition of older 
 phrases. This gives a happy balance between easy repetition and a 
 
J(I2J] HOW TO TEACH BEGINNING READING 33 
 
 few new words, and enables the children early to read with consider- 
 able fluency, provided the teacher is skilled in introducing the 
 story so as to anticipate the vocabulary difficulties. 
 
 5. Preparation for reading the story includes dramatic telling, new 
 words on cards, telling from pictures.— In preparing for the reading 
 of the second story, Miss Hardy introduced it by first telling it 
 dramatically herself and then retelling it with display of new words 
 upon cards at appropriate places. These words were then restudied 
 in connection with parts of the oral story. Finally, after the books 
 were in hand, the children, before reading the story, told it as they 
 found it represented in the pictures. This practice attaches 
 especial importance and significance to the pictures in the making 
 of a primer. As a consequence, high-grade artists are employed 
 to draw them. The results are pictures full of story and action 
 which the pupils delight in beholding. 
 
 6. Rapidly read many stories in many books. — When the story 
 is finally read, it is completed rapidly and the next story soon 
 begun. This eliminates the old-fashioned practice of reading the 
 same stories in a single primer over and over. Instead, after one 
 primer is quickly finished, another is begun, with the result that 
 from ten to twenty books, including first readers, may be completed 
 in one year. Since nearly all these books possess the same type 
 of stories about animals and common things, the vocabulary 
 demands may be quite small, but the actual practice in fundamental 
 reading habits very large. In order to make these fundamental 
 reading habits the chief factor in the reading period, most of the 
 repetitional, gameful drill with word cards is placed in a separate 
 period. This separate drill activity, through automatizing the 
 recognition of sight words, greatly aids the activity of the reading 
 period. By being separated, however, it is kept from detracting 
 from the interpretative reading attitudes and the mental and 
 muscular practice in continuous reading which predominate in 
 the reading period. 
 
 7. Muscular adjustments of eyes in finding and following the 
 line aided by marker. — The muscular practice referred to consists 
 largely of practice in moving the eyes step by step along each line 
 and then swinging them back to the beginning of the next line. 
 
34 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL [November 
 
 Little children have special difl&culties in making such fine motor 
 adjustments. Even an adult reader has difficulty in some cases 
 in finding with his eyes the beginning of the next hne, for example, 
 in case he is reading a very wide page containing very long hnes. 
 An adult may even have difficulty in keeping his eyes on a single 
 line in cases Uke reading a wide statistical table. In such cases an 
 adult is very likely to use a ruler or a piece of paper to mark the 
 line and guide his eyes. The same device was used by Miss Hardy's 
 children in the form of a strip of manila paper. This not only aids 
 each child's eyes in finding and following the line, but also aids 
 the teacher in holding the attention of all the pupils upon the 
 same line as she says, "Now move your markers to the third line," 
 etc. It thus contributes to securing the continuous, coherent, 
 rapid reading which we have emphasized. 
 
 Summary of rules for begiiming hook reading. — The discussion 
 of the teaching of the first lessons in book reading may be 
 summarized in the seven following rules : 
 
 1. Secure continuous, coherent, rapid, meaningful reading. 
 
 2. Introduce the first story by prehminary reading of it on a 
 chart in order to simplify the complexities of the first book reading. 
 
 3. Use continuous, thrilling storied m.aterial to encourage page- 
 after-page reading. 
 
 4. Choose child classics with repetitional phrases to facilitate 
 continuous, easy reading. 
 
 5. Prepare for fluent reading of the first few stories by telHng 
 each story before reading it, showing new words on cards, and 
 having the pupils retell the story from the pictures. 
 
 6. Read rapidly many stories in many books. 
 
 7. Have each pupil use a line marker to aid the eyes and to 
 secure attention of all pupils to the same line. 
 
 In this series of articles we have emphasized the teaching of 
 reading as vitally related to children's experiences in the first 
 grade with games, constructive activities, nursery rhymes, and 
 thrilling adventures found in the classic stories of childhood. All 
 the technique employed in the teaching has tended to establish 
 in the pupils the fundamental reading attitude and habits of trying 
 to get meaningful, interesting experiences from printed material. 
 
1921] HOW TO TEACH BEGINNING READING 3S 
 
 At the same time, the child has been acquiring certain mechanical 
 habits of moving his eyes and a vocabulary of sight words which 
 he can use as tools in reading many stories containing his familiar 
 vocabulary. It is highly desirable, however, to extend the pupil's 
 skill so that he can read material in which unfamiliar printed 
 forms occur; in other words, to make him an independent reader 
 of all types of material adapted to his age. For this reason, after 
 the fundamental correct reading attitudes and habits had been well 
 started, we found Miss Hardy introducing the third phase of first- 
 grade reading, to which we shall now turn our attention. 
 
 IV. INDEPE^fDENT RECOGNITION OF NEW WORDS 
 PHONETIC ANALYSIS 
 
 A. SAMPLE LESSONS 
 
 Third phase of beginning reading. — The descriptions of the 
 reading in Miss Hardy's room carried us through the first two 
 principal phases: (i) Incidental reading and the reading of rhymes 
 and stories from charts. (2) Beginning to read in the primer. At 
 the beginning of the sixth week, the third phase of reading was 
 introduced, namely, phonetic training to enable the children to 
 analyze and name new words instead of having to be taught each 
 word ''by sight." We shall describe Miss Hardy's introduction 
 to the phonetic sounds and to the phonetic analysis of words and 
 then take up a scientific study of the necessity and value of such 
 training. 
 
 Some children early interested in rhyming words and in similar 
 beginnings. — Occasionally, before the beginning of the sixth week, 
 some of the children gave evidence of their natural interest in 
 words that sound alike by voluntary remarks about words that 
 rhymed in the jingles they were studying, such as "Jill" and "hill." 
 Some of them had even noticed the similar beginnings of words as 
 Miss Hardy wrote them on the board. For example, the word 
 "Save" had become ver)' familiar as a note to the janitor. One 
 day when the teacher wrote "Sam," a pupil said "You begin that 
 word just like 'Save.'" On another occasion a pupil suggested 
 that "man" and "met" looked something alike. 
 
 First phonetic lesson. Learning the sound of "m" as initial sound 
 of four familiar words. —The first sound which the children learned 
 
36 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL [November 
 
 was that of the consonant m. It was taught during a portion of 
 a word-study period. For the lesson Miss Hardy selected four 
 words beginning with m, which the children had used in their 
 reading and which they knew well by sight, namely, met, man, 
 make, and made. After some preHminaries, the major steps in the 
 teaching were the following: 
 
 1. Miss Hardy asked the children to Hsten carefully as she 
 pronounced the four words and then to tell her what part sounded 
 the same. They readily said, "The first part." 
 
 2. She then said, "Watch my lips as I say each word so that 
 you can hear that first sound." 
 
 3. Then she brought out a small chart on which the words 
 were printed. These were pronounced and the first sound con- 
 nected with the sight of the first letter. 
 
 4. She wrote the words on the blackboard and the children 
 noted how they all began the same. 
 
 5. The children were then asked to think of other words which 
 began with the same sound. One said, "Money." Another said, 
 "Margery." One child who was not getting the point said, 
 "Little." 
 
 6. The teacher said, "I am thinking of something the cow 
 gives which begins with this sound." The children said, "Milk." 
 Again, "I am thinking of a kind of pie we have at Thanksgiving." 
 "Mince," they said. Similar questions with easy obvious answers 
 were given until most of the children had the sound well in mind 
 and connected with the beginnings of certain familiar words. 
 
 Second phonetic lesson. Learning the sound of "s." Details of 
 technique. — Two days later during a word-study period the second 
 sound was taught, namely, that of the consonant s. About seven 
 minutes were consumed in the following activities: 
 
 1. "The other day we discovered many words that begin with 
 the same sound," said Miss Hardy. The children immediately 
 began to hum the sound of m and volunteered, "met, man," etc., 
 as she held up the old chart. 
 
 2. "This morning we are going to have some more words which 
 you know and see with what sound they begin. Look at my lips 
 and listen," she said, as she pronounced, seed, so, said, some — all 
 
 I 
 
1Q2I] HOW TO TEACH BEGINNING RE.\DING 37 
 
 familiar words from the reading lessons. The children immediately 
 volunteered the hissing s sound. One child said, "That's the 
 snake's sound." "How do you know?" asked Miss Hardy. 
 "My mother told me." 
 
 3. A chart with the words printed on it was then studied, the 
 teacher pointing at the beginning of each word as it was 
 pronounced. 
 
 4. In response to the teacher's request, "I want you to tell me 
 a word that begins with this sound," the children gave "sore" 
 and "say." The teacher added "Sunday" and said, "I am think- 
 ing of a boy's name that begins with this sound." "John," 
 said one child. "No, Sam is the word." "That's my uncle's 
 name," volunteered one of the youngsters who were nearly all 
 ready now with additional words such as "saw" and "salmon." 
 
 5. "Are you ready to see me write one of these words?" 
 queried Miss Hardy. "I am going to write this first word," 
 pointing at "seed." .... "What does it say?" and so on till 
 all were written. 
 
 6. "Now watch me as I erase one of the words; then tell me 
 which one it was." The game element in this activity held the 
 children's rapt attention. Finally all words were erased. 
 
 7. The children were then taught to write the word "seed" 
 at the blackboard. 
 
 8. Before dismissing the children the phonetic work of the period 
 was then briefly recalled by Miss Hardy, with such remarks as 
 "What sound does seed begin with? .... What was another 
 
 word on that card ? . . . . Let's say them all through again 
 
 How many think you will know that sound when you see a word 
 in your books that begins with it ?" 
 
 Puzzled about leaching word families. Need experiments on how 
 children learn phonetic analysis. — With similar detailed devices, 
 Miss Hardy proceeded to teach the sounds of other con.sonants. 
 She then reached a stage that puzzles first-grade teachers of 
 phonetics, namely, teaching the sounds and combinations of the 
 vowels. The puzzling issue is whether (i) to attach the vowel 
 to the final consonant of a short word, for e.xample, "cat," 
 thus giving the "at" family, or (2) to attach the vowel to the 
 
38 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL [November 
 
 initial consonant, thus, "ca t", which is urged by some experts in 
 phonetics who object to the "family" idea. Much argument has 
 been printed concerning this issue, but I know of no precise experi- 
 mental study of how children learn to pronounce which will give 
 us a valid, scientific answer. There is much discussion in terms of 
 the phonetic structure of words, but few experiments on how 
 children learn. For this reason. Miss Hardy stated that she did 
 not feel as confident of her technique at this stage as in some of the 
 other stages. However, the following account gives a general 
 idea of part of her procedure. 
 
 Vowel sounds derived by cutting consonants from short words. — 
 The following table of words illustrates the material used in the 
 derivation of the short vowel sounds. 
 
 cat met bit not cut 
 
 bat get fit got but 
 
 rat let hit hot nut 
 
 When the teacher wrote the first column of this material, the 
 children easily recognized the words or quickly learned them. 
 Having already learned the consonant sounds, they easily gave 
 each when the teacher covered up the other parts of the word. 
 
 When she erased the final / and asked what was left, the children 
 said, "ca, ba, ra." Then, when she erased the initial consonants 
 of these syllables and asked what was left, the pupils gave the 
 short sound of a. Similar procedure with the other columns, plus 
 many additional short words, enabled the children themselves to 
 discover the short sounds of the vowels and to gain skill in pronoun- 
 cing new short words containing them. They were told that these 
 vowel sounds were called short. 
 
 Long sounds learned; then rule determining long or short. — 
 Later, the children were told that sometimes the vowels are not 
 called short, but are called the opposite; whereupon they them- 
 selves supplied the word "long." From a study of words which 
 they already knew, such as "late" and "rode," they became 
 familiar with the long sounds and learned that generally when a 
 short word ends in e the latter is silent and the other vowel is long. 
 
 Many devices for concreteness, activity, interest, and drill. — 
 The reader will readily understand that this later teaching was not 
 
1921] HOW TO TEACH BFGL\XING READING 39 
 
 carried on in the rapid, abstract manner that this brief description 
 of it may suggest, but extended over many days and at all stages 
 was characterized by the concrete beginnings, the varied delightful 
 activities of the pupils, and the gameful, repetitional drill devices 
 which we found ever present in the earlier descriptions of Miss 
 Hardy's lessons. Owing to the great length of these articles we 
 must refrain from giving further details concerning the phonetic 
 instruction and present briefly the general principles of training 
 in the independent recognition of new words which Miss Hardy's 
 lessons indicate. 
 
 B. PRINCIPLES 
 
 1. Without phonetic training pupils become inaccurate, dependent 
 readers. — Complete proof of the necessity and value of phonetic train- 
 ing in the recognition of new words must be postponed until the ne.xt 
 article which will present the results of scientific studies of reading. 
 We may anticipate, however, by stating that pupils who have not 
 had training in independent word analysis prove to be, on the 
 average, much more inaccurate in their reading than pupils who 
 have had this training. Even from common observation one can 
 readily appreciate the desirability of training pupils so that they 
 can rapidly and accurately decipher the new words which they meet 
 in their ever\'day reading in and out of school, instead of merely 
 recognizing the words which they have already learned by sight. 
 
 2. Teach in a separate period. — In order to protect the sight- 
 reading period from interfering attitudes, the phonetic instruction 
 and drill are best given in a separate period. Such skill as is 
 acquired in these separate periods will be used, howev'er, where 
 needed in the regular reading period. This will be illustrated later 
 in an account of a second-grade lesson. 
 
 3. Derive the sounds by analyzing familiar words. ^In Miss 
 Hardy's lessons it was shown how the word drill upon certain 
 words from the reading lessons was naturally and easily directed 
 into a study of the initial sounds of the words. Some of the children 
 had already of their own accord shown an interest in these sounds. 
 The study of the latter represents the final step in the analytical 
 learning, from whole to parts, already described. Such learning 
 
40 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL {November 
 
 proceeds from the whole story to individual lines and phrases, then 
 to drill on individual words, and finally to the sounds composing 
 the words. 
 
 4. Teach the easy sounds early. — This rule is illustrated by the 
 consonants 5 and b. The hissing sound of the 5 is easily separated 
 from the words and pronounced by children, but the sound of b 
 is more difficult even for an adult to learn to make. The ordinary 
 result when an adult tries to pronounce b is really the sound of the 
 phonogram bu. 
 
 5. Teach the most useful sounds early. — This rule is illustrated 
 by the short and long sounds of the vowels. One authority 
 estimates that in the Jones spelUng Ust 61 per cent of the phonetic 
 syllables have short vowels, and 10 per cent of the phonetic syllables 
 have the vowels made long by final e. These frequencies justify 
 us in early teaching the short sounds of the vowels, and quickly 
 following with words in which the vowels are made long by final e. 
 
 6. Teach habits of analyzing words that will help in all later 
 reading. — In general, this rule means that pupils will be given 
 much practice in straightforward attack upon unfamiliar or new 
 words. One of the facts which will come out in the next article 
 on the scientific investigations of reading is the existence of very 
 halting, confused methods of attacking new words that characterize 
 many poor readers. Only sufficient practice in using methods of 
 phonetic analysis will give mastery of them and lead to a confident 
 straightforward attack. 
 
 7. Use a ready-made scientific system of leaching phonetics. — 
 The few comments which we have made suggest that the effective 
 mastery of phonetic tools and analysis cannot be left to the 
 haphazard effort of inexperienced unskilled teachers. Just as in 
 the teaching of handwriting and spelling, we need ready-made, 
 scientifically constructed systems. In phonetic teaching these 
 systems will be derived from a study of (i) the phonetics of the 
 common English words and (2) the methods and devices by which 
 children most readily acquire skill in phonetic analysis. There is 
 available at least one system in which the first factor, namely, the 
 phonetics of the language, has been given careful consideration. 
 It also has applied such knowledge of how children learn phonetic 
 
1921] HOW TO TEACH BEGINNING READING 41 
 
 analysis as is available. However, many more detailed investiga- 
 tions are needed of children's experiences in learning particular 
 sounds, phonetic combinations, and syllabification before ready- 
 made systems for teaching phonetic analysis can be perfected. 
 
 Conclusion of first-grade reading. Correct reading habits plus 
 skill in word analysis. — This will conclude the discussion of first- 
 grade reading as derived from the actual lessons observed in Miss 
 Hardy's room. These lessons and the interpretative discussion 
 have given a notion of modern progressive methods of teaching 
 reading to pupils in the first grade. The initial emphasis is placed 
 on forming the correct reading attitude of trjing to get meaningful 
 interesting experiences from printed material. For this purpose 
 action words, nursery rhj-mes, and continuous storied material were 
 used to enable children early to take a delight in fluent reading. 
 After the fundamental reading attitudes and habits had been 
 correctly started, systematic training for the independent phonetic 
 analysis of new words was started at the beginning of the sixth 
 week. Throughout the first year both of these tjpes of practice 
 are emphasized, namely, (i) easy, fluent, delightful reading and 
 (2) practice in phonetic analysis. In order to give the reader an 
 idea of the results of such teaching, as well as the modifications that 
 occur in the technique as the children gain more skill, a reading 
 lesson observed in the autumn in a second-grade room, will be 
 described briefly. 
 
 V. A SECOND-GRADE LESSON ILLUSTRATING ACHEEVEUENTS AND 
 TECHNIQUE 
 
 Preparation. Discussion of monkeys and crocodiles. — The second- 
 grade children assembled in their little chairs in the front of the 
 room just as the first-graders had done. Miss Laura Lucas, their 
 teacher, spent about two minutes in a preparatory discussion before 
 turning to the story which they were to read. Among her ques- 
 tions and remarks, which were interspersed with answers from the 
 children, were the following: "How many of you, when you went 
 to the zoo. saw the crocodiles?" "How do they move, quickly or 
 slowly?" "Do they climb trees like monkeys?" (Some of the 
 children said they do.) "What kind of country do they live in. 
 
42 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL [November 
 
 cold or hot?" Where do monkeys live; in what kind of 
 country ?" "If a crocodile wanted to catch a monkey, how would 
 he do it?" "I thought this morning you would like to read a 
 story about how a crocodile tried to catch a monkey." "The 
 animals we are going to read about lived in a country called 'India, "' 
 said the teacher as she wrote the word "India" on the board. 
 She then wrote "Mr. Crocodile" and "Mr. Monkey," saying, 
 "They called each other by these names." 
 
 Silent reading. Books presented to pupils. — "When I give you 
 your books, turn to page 85, read silently, and tell me if there are 
 any words you do not know." 
 
 Much whispered vocalization indicated stage of development. — 
 The children followed these directions and read the story silently 
 with perfect attention. There was much whispered vocalization, 
 showing that most of the children were not reading to themselves 
 any faster than they could pronounce the words. 
 
 Assistance in phonetic analysis of new words given individually. — 
 Those children who needed assistance advanced individually to the 
 teacher who was now seated in a low chair. As each child pointed 
 out the words he did not know. Miss Lucas gave him help in such a 
 low tone that the others were not distracted. As a rule she did 
 not teU a child outright, but helped him use his phonetic ability. 
 For example, she said, "You have two vowels here. Clarence; 
 which one do you pronounce?" 
 
 Lack of phonetic training necessitated much help for one child. — 
 Some of the children did not need any assistance. Most of them 
 asked only once. One girl, however, requested help five times. 
 After the lesson Miss Lucas told me that this child entered from 
 another school where she had not had phonetic training; conse- 
 quently, she could not decipher the new words. She was being 
 given special training to correct her deficiency. 
 
 Difficult words written on board in order of occurrence. — As the 
 children asked for help on particular words, Miss Lucas made a 
 memorandum of each on a card and then wrote them on the board 
 in the order in which they occurred in the story, together with other 
 words or phrases to which she desired to call their attention. The 
 
iS>3l] HOW TO TE.\CH BEGINNING READING 43 
 
 list is as follows: greedy, catch, bank, fond of fruit, swam along, 
 surface, started, stupid, angry, narrow, moved, crawled, hello, 
 afraid. Those who had finished the silent reading were told to 
 study the words on the board. 
 
 Pupils related the story. Showed successful silent reading. — 
 After all the pupils had finished reading the story silently, Miss 
 Lucas said, "Put your fmger in the place and close your books. 
 Will someone tell us just how it happened that the crocodile wanted 
 to catch the monkey ?" A pupil gave his answer. 
 
 "What was his first plan to catch the monkey?" A boy 
 described the plan. 
 
 "Tell us about the second plan, Damon." 
 
 The pupils talked ver>' freely and related the story so clearly 
 that it was obvious they had thoroughly grasped it in their silent 
 reading. 
 
 Difficult words on board. Explained if pupils requested.— Miss 
 Lucas then said, "Here are some of the words you asked for. If 
 there is any word here that any child doesn't know, hold up your 
 hand." She then explained certain of the words as the pupils 
 requested. 
 
 Pupils pronounce and weave new words into oral 5/ory.— Miss 
 Lucas then reviewed all the words by telling the story briefly and 
 pointing at each word as it worked into the story. Instead of 
 pronouncing it herself, however, she had the pupils say it in unison. 
 For e.xample, the last word "afraid" was inserted by the children 
 as she said, "Then the monkey was so ... . that he didn't go 
 near the place any more." 
 
 Oral reading. Rapid, connected, fluent audience reading aided 
 by teacher's suggestions. — Since there were several visitors present, 
 Miss Lucas then had the children read the story orally in a rapid 
 continuous manner. She gave occasional suggestions such as the 
 following: 
 
 "I'll ask Esther to start reading " "Remember, now 
 
 you are speaking to him, Esther." " What did he answer, Frank ? " 
 "Then, how did the crocodile tind the monkey?" "What did 
 the^crocodile say, Robert?" "Not quite so fast, Emerson, so 
 
44 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL 
 
 we can hear every word." "Now, Constance, these people are 
 talking back and forth. Read just like you were talking, just 
 like you would say it if you were the monkey." 
 
 Plan to represent characters of story and improve reading. — At 
 the end of the reading there was a discussion arising out of the 
 teacher's suggestion that next time they read the storj- again with 
 different children taking the parts of the characters in the story. 
 Miss Lucas asked, "How might we make our reading better?" 
 The pupils gave various answers such as " Get our words together, " 
 "Read like people talk," and "Know the place." 
 
 New problem of rate of oral and silent reading. — It is scarcely 
 necessary to enter into a detailed statement of the principles of 
 teaching reading illustrated by this second-grade lesson. There is 
 the same careful balance of (i) rapid grasp of meanings and (2) 
 skill in independent analysis of new words which prevailed in the 
 later weeks of the first-grade reading. The pupils are now real 
 readers; they can take up a story adapted to their stage of develop- 
 ment and get from its silent perusal the meanings and delight which 
 it is intended to convey. There are, however, certain facts which 
 need further discussion and interpretation. For e.xample, though 
 the children were reading silently in the ordinary sense of the term, 
 most of them were vocalizing quite audiblj', showing that they were 
 not reading any faster than they could pronounce the words. The 
 boy, Emerson, however, could recognize words and read so rapidly 
 silently that when he came to read orally he enunciated so fast 
 that the audience could not understand him easily. He had become 
 such a skilled, rapid, silent reader, Miss Lucas said, that she pro- 
 vided liim with much supplementary reading to fill his time. 
 
 Such instances raise important questions concerning the rates 
 of oral and silent reading and the relations between oral and silent 
 reading. These questions have been subjected to careful e.xperi- 
 mental study from which important conclusions have been derived 
 concerning methods of teaching reading. In the next article these 
 scientific studies will be discussed. 
 
ARTICLE IV 
 
 VI. SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATIONS OF READING 
 
 Divisions o J this section. — The following features of the scientific 
 investigations of reading will be considered briefly in this section 
 in order to give some of the scientific background for the practical 
 discussions found in the earlier articles, (i) Laboratory- studies 
 of word-recognition and of eye-movements. (2) Tests and scales 
 for measuring oral and silent reading. (3) Conclusions from 
 scientific investigations. These conclusions concern the relation 
 of oral and silent reading, the value of phonetic instruction, the 
 needs of pupils who read poorly, and the nature of reading as 
 active, selective thinking. 
 
 LABORATORY STUDIES OF WORD-RECOGNmON AND OF EYE-MOVEMENTS 
 
 Experiments on flash recognition. — In the earlier accounts of 
 first-grade lessons, we described methods of teaching children to 
 recognize whole words at a glance, with no previous training in the 
 alphabet or in spelhng or phonetics. This practice is quite con- 
 trary to the old-fashioned idea that children had to know the 
 letters before they could learn words. The obvious success of the 
 children is sufficient proof of the possibility of whole-word recogni- 
 tion; but certain psychological experiments help to confirm our 
 belief in the importance of such practice. Some of the earliest 
 experiments upon such flash recognition of words were conducted 
 by exposing letters and words to view for a measured fraction of a 
 second. It was found that a long familiar word could be recog- 
 nized at a glance; but if disordered letters were displayed, it took 
 much longer to make them out. 
 
 45 
 
46 
 
 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL 
 
 [December 
 
 Span of recognition of poor and good readers. — Similar experi- 
 ments were used later in diagnosing the differences between chil- 
 dren in reading ability. Thus, at the University of Chicago in 1916, 
 special studies were made of the "span of recognition" of poor 
 readers and good readers. It was found that when six words were 
 exposed for about one-fifth of a second, a good reader recognized 
 on the average more than fwe of the words, while a poor reader 
 recognized less than two words. These experiments explain the 
 
 ' Then was anoth( r bird ii i the r 
 
 S Zi 
 
 1, however, 
 
 l(, 17 
 
 Z I 
 
 wl o '. :new wl at grassho jpers we 'e good f( r. H< 
 
 7 
 
 was a I orchard oriole; 
 
 ind, after looking ( a awl ile. 
 
 Zo 
 
 /3 
 
 /O JO 
 
 Fig. I. — Silent reading by a rapid reader in the fourth grade. Each vertical 
 line indicates one pause. The top number indicates the number of the pause and 
 and the bottom number its duration in fiftieths of a second. X indicates that it 
 was impossible to determine with precision the length of the pause. 
 
 value of flash drills in the rapid recognition of words on cards as a 
 means of speeding up pupils' recognition of famihar words. E.xperi- 
 ments in the University of Chicago laboratory showed that such 
 practice was helpful as high as the fourth grade. 
 
 Experiments in photographing eye-movements. Huey's notable 
 book. — In the descriptions of the first lessons in book reading it 
 was noted that the children used a manila paper Une-marker to 
 
IQSl] 
 
 HOW TO TEACH BEGINNING READING 
 
 47 
 
 guide their eyes along the line. This practice illustrates the 
 recognition by psychologists that eye-movements are a fundamental 
 factor in reading. The early efforts to study these movements 
 began with simple observations of the eyes of a person while read- 
 ing. If you will make such observations, you will see that the 
 eyes proceed by jerks and pauses as they read a hne, and then 
 make a long sweep back to the beginning of the next line. One 
 of the pioneer investigators of these movements was E. B. Huey, 
 
 3 y S 
 
 The re was an< th ;r bin I in tl i ■ roo 
 
 ^9 /3 IS 
 / 
 
 7 /o 
 
 ho' evi r. 
 /3 // 
 
 3 ¥ sr (, J 
 
 w \ hat g nsshopi ers \ ere gcxxl f r. He 
 
 r 
 
 iz IS * X 10 
 
 '9 
 
 Id 
 
 I R 
 
 ¥ S C 7 
 
 orchai J oriole; aj d,a lorlc iking < i nul 
 
 /r /o // /< 9 m 
 
 Fig. 2. — Silent reading by a poor reader in the fifth grade. X iodicates thai it 
 was impossible to determine with precision the length of the pause. 
 
 who published in 1908 a book entitled The Psychology and Peda- 
 gogy of Reading (Macmillan Co.). This book was widely read by 
 persons interested in the teaching of reading and is still one of the 
 best sources of information about the histor>', psycholog>', and 
 teaching of reading. 
 
 Judd's elaborate studies.— The most elalwratc photographic 
 studies of eye-movements have been made during recent years 
 
48 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL [December 
 
 at the University of Chicago, under the direction of Professor 
 C. H. Judd. The special apparatus used cost approximately 
 $6,000, funds for the purchase of which were furnished by the 
 General Education Board. One professor of education, on leave 
 of absence from another institution, spent a whole year designing 
 improved apparatus and making photographic records of the eye- 
 movements of many adults and children. Several graduate 
 students also conducted elaborate experiments. An account of 
 the results of these experiments, together with much other material, 
 was given by Judd in a monograph entitled Reading: Its Nature 
 and Development, published in 1918. During 1921 Professor Judd 
 was granted $15,000 by the Commonwealth Fund to carry further 
 these experimental investigations. 
 
 Poor reader may pause twice as often as good reader. — In these 
 experimental studies of eye-movements, the most striking contrasts 
 appear between good and poor readers in (i) the number of pauses 
 which they make in reading a line, and (2) the amount of confused 
 eye-movement that occurs. We cannot here consider these 
 characteristics in detail, but we may note the difference between 
 a good reader and a poor one in the number of pauses, as illustrated 
 in Figures i and 2.' Each vertical line indicates a pause. It will 
 be noted that the good fourth-grade reader paused only six 
 times in reading the first line, while the poor fifth-grade reader 
 paused thirteen times. Later in the article, we shall have occasion 
 again to refer to the results of such experimental studies of eye- 
 movements. 
 
 TESTS AND SCALES FOR MEASURING ORAL AND SILENT READING 
 
 Measuring reading is a complex matter. — Another type of 
 investigation of reading has been the construction of scales for 
 measuring the rate and quality of reading. In the case of hand- 
 writing or spelling, the construction of scales is comparatively 
 easy, owing to the simplicity of the subject-matter. In the case 
 of reading, the opposite is true. The complete measurement of 
 skill in reading is very difficult on account of the complexity of 
 
 "Reproductions of Plates XXVII and XXX in Reading: lis Nature and Devel- 
 opment by Charles Hubbard Judd, pp. 63 and 67. 
 
igsi] HOW TO TEACH BEGINNING READING 49 
 
 the subject-matter and of the interpretative reactions of the pupils. 
 However, great progress has been made in devising scales for 
 measuring reading ability, and we shall note briefly a few of those 
 which have been published. 
 
 Oral reading Icsls and scales. Gray's standardized paragraphs. — 
 One of the most widely used scales for measuring ability in oral 
 reading is that devised by Professor W. S. Gray of the University 
 of Chicago. In testing ability in oral reading, the pupil is required 
 to read certain standard paragraphs out loud to an observer who 
 makes a written memorandum of the following factors in the read- 
 ing: (i) The amount of time consumed; (2) the number of errors 
 made: {a) gross mispronunciations, {b) minor mispronunciations, 
 (c) omission of words, (d) insertion of words, (c) repetition of 
 words or groups of words, and (/) substitution of one word or group 
 of words for another. 
 
 Sample paragraphs illustrating increasing difficulty. — The ma- 
 terial which the pupils read in this test consists of a series of 
 short paragraphs which gradually increase in difficulty. The 
 second, sixth, and eighth paragraphs are here reproduced. 
 
 2 
 
 Once there was a little pig. 
 
 He lived with his mother in a pen. 
 
 One day he saw his four feet. 
 
 "Mother," he said, "what can 1 do 
 with my feet V 
 
 His mother said, "Vou can run with 
 them." 
 
 So the little pig ran round and round 
 the pen. 
 
 6 
 
 The jmrt of farming enjoyed most by a \wy 
 is the nmkiiit,' ot niaplc suuur. It is l)fttcr than 
 blackberryinu and almost as good as tisiiinj;. 
 
50 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL [December 
 
 One reason why a boy likes this work is that 
 someone else does most of it. It is a sort of work 
 in which he can appear to be very industrious and 
 yet do but little. 
 
 8 
 The crown and glory of a useful life is char- 
 acter. It is the noblest possession of man. It 
 forms a rank in itself, an estate in the general 
 good will, dignifying every station and exalting 
 every position in society. It exercises a greater 
 power than wealth, and is a valuable means of 
 securing honor. 
 
 One may easily note the progressive growth in difficulty. The 
 twelfth and iinal paragraph, which is sufficiently difficult to test 
 even high-school pupils, reads in part as follows: 
 
 The hypotheses concerning physical phenomena formulated by the early 
 philosophers proved to be inconsistent and in general not universally applicable. 
 
 Humorous illustration of a pupil's experience with the test. — 
 The pupil who is being tested reads successive paragraphs until 
 he makes seven errors in each of two paragraphs. The increasing 
 difficulty for the pupil is illustrated by the case of a boy who had 
 been subjected to a number of medical examinations shortly before 
 he encountered the oral-reading test. As he progressed through 
 the paragraphs, and these became harder and harder, he stuttered 
 and stammered, backed up, hesitated, and finally said to Mr. Gray: 
 "I don't know what you're looking for. Mister; but whatever it 
 is, I've sure got it." 
 
 Standard scores derived from wide use of the test. — While devising 
 and standardizing these tests (about 1915), Gray tried them out 
 extensively and carefully in thirteen cities in Illinois. Later they 
 were used in surveys of reading in Cleveland, Grand Rapids, 
 St. Louis, and Indianapolis. From the results of thus testing 
 thousands of children in the oral reading of the same paragraphs, 
 there has been derived a series of standard scores or achievements 
 
iprj] HOW TO TEACH BEGINNING READING 51 
 
 which we can use in evaluating the success of the teaching of oral 
 reading in any room, school, or system of schools. At the same 
 Ume, we can use the tests and scores in diagnosing the needs of 
 particular pupils and determining necessary changes in methods of 
 teaching reading. We shall refer to some of the results of such 
 studies of methods of teacliing after noting examples of tests for 
 measuring silent reading. 
 
 Silent-reading tests and scales. Courtis tests. — One of the best 
 known and most convenient silent-reading tests is that of S. A. 
 Courtis, of Detroit. This test is given to a class as a whole, which 
 renders it more easy to administer than an oral-reading test which 
 must necessarily be given individually. In the Courtis test, each 
 child is given a little pamphlet containing a story and directions 
 for reading it. In the first part of the test, upon a signal from the 
 examiner, the pupils begin to read. At the end of each half minute, 
 the examiner says, "Mark," whereupon each pupil draws a circle 
 around the last word and goes on reading. From such records 
 the rates of silent reading can be calculated. 
 
 Quality of pupil's studious comprehension tested by questions. — 
 The second part of the Courtis test measures the quality of the 
 pupil's silent reading by having him write the answers to a number 
 of printed questions about the story. The material for this part 
 of the test is printed in the back of the pamphlet and is divided into 
 paragraphs followed by questions as indicated in the following 
 sample: 
 
 When the day of the party came. Daddy planted a May-pole and Mother 
 tied it with gay-colored ribbons. There were to be games and dances on the 
 grass and a delicious supper, with a basketful of flowers for every child. 
 
 1. Were the children to have anything to eat ? 
 
 2. Were they going to play on the grass ? 
 
 3. Were they going into the house to dance? 
 
 4. Were the baskets to be full of flowers ? 
 
 5. Was it Daddy who tied the ribbons to the pole ? 
 
 Both rapidity and quality of comprehension measured. — There are 
 some fourteen paragraphs similar to the foregoing in the story, and 
 a total of about seventy questions. The time is limited so that 
 even the best pupil will not complete the test ; but all may do several 
 minutes of work, thus giving them time really to get into the 
 
52 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL [December 
 
 swing of the task. The directions say, "Do not guess at the 
 answers. If you do not remember what the story said, read the 
 paragraph just above the questions again and again until you find 
 the right answer." Thus the test measures both the rapidity and 
 the accuracy of the pupil's comprehension. 
 
 Great variety of silent-reading tests. From word-recognition to 
 solving problems. — A somewhat similar test was pubUshed by 
 Professor E. L. Thorndike, of Columbia University, in 1914, and 
 the results used by him in a number of articles in which he discussed 
 the mental processes of pupils in understanding or misunderstand- 
 ing sentences. Numerous other tests have been devised to measure 
 various phases of reading, varying from the mere ability to recognize 
 words to the abihty to solve puzzle problems expressed in words.' 
 Instead of discussing these varying types of tests, it will be more to 
 our purpose to turn to a brief study of the ideas concerning the 
 methods of teaching reading which have been derived from both 
 the experimental laboratory studies of reading described earlier 
 in the article and the use of tests and scales which we have just 
 been considering. 
 
 CONCLUSIONS FROM SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATIONS 
 
 Differences in oral and silent reading. Silent rate usually exceeds 
 oral after fourth grade. — One of the important facts that early 
 appeared from the use of standard tests of the reading of school 
 children was that the rate of silent reading becomes more rapid 
 than the rate of oral reading somewhere in the middle grades. 
 We had one example of this fact in the second-grade lesson described 
 in which a bright boy had already reached the stage in silent reading 
 where he read second-grade material more rapidly than the pace 
 of good oral reading. In the case of most pupils, this change comes 
 in the third or fourth grade, depending upon the natural talent of 
 the pupil and the methods used in teaching reading. After this 
 point in the grades, most pupils will read more rapidly silently 
 than orally. A pupil's rate in careful oral reading will never 
 
 ■ Probably the most convenient source from which to purchase school tests in all 
 subjects is the Public School Publishing Company, Bloomington, Illinois. Write 
 for their catalogue of tests. They co-operate with the very efficient Bureau of Educa- 
 tional Research of the University of Illinois in marketing selected tests. 
 
J93I] HOW TO TEACH BEGIN.VLVG READING S3 
 
 exceed that of clear pronunciation, whereas his silent rate may 
 advance far beyond this, becoming as high as 375 words per minute 
 when he reaches high school if he is a specially skilled reader. This 
 means that he could read a page of the length of this one, if it 
 contained ordinary story material, in about one minute. To read 
 it orally, at the ordinary pace, would take two minutes. 
 
 Pfiotograpfis show differences in eye-movements in siUnt and oral 
 reading. — One of the most objective and impressive demonstrations 
 of the differences between a pupil's reading processes in silent read- 
 ing and in oral reading is found in the photographic records of 
 eye-movements. A clear case is shown in Figures 3 and 4,' which 
 represent the eye-pauses of the same pupil in silent and in oral 
 reading. In the silent-reading record it appears that the pupil's 
 eyes in reading each line made only four stops and at very regular 
 spatial intervals. In the oral-reading record, it is shown that 
 his eyes made from seven to fourteen stops in a line and at quite 
 irregular intervals. 
 
 Overemphasis on oral reading may interfere with silent. — Thus 
 we have derived from the scientific investigations two important 
 lines of evidence on the relation of oral and silent reading. The 
 school tests show us where, on the average, the silent rate begins to 
 exceed the oral; and the photographic records of eye-movements 
 show how many more eye-pauses occur in oral than in silent 
 reading. From such evidence investigators conclude that the com- 
 mon emphasis upon oral reading above the third grade seriously 
 interferes with the development of habits of skilled silent reading, 
 and that it would be better to give various t>'pes of practice 
 especially suited to develop skill in silent reading. 
 
 Necessity of phonetic training shown by investigations. — .Vnother 
 useful point that has been determined by the scientific investiga- 
 tions is the necessity of special training in the accurate recognition 
 of new words, such as the phonetic training described in the pre- 
 ceding articles. This fact appeared most clearly in Gray's survey 
 of the results of teaching reading in one of the Middle-West cities 
 that maintains an excellent school system. Like several progressive 
 
 ■ ReproducUons of Plates XXXIII and XXXVIII in Re-idini /(. V./urr and 
 Development by Charles HubbarJ Judd, pp. 71 and 78. 
 
S4 
 
 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL 
 
 [December 
 
 schools of recent years, this system tended to neglect the so-called 
 "formal" phonetic drill in word-recognition. The faUacy of this 
 neglect appeared when their results in reading were compared 
 with those from other cities as measured by Gray's tests. In 
 speaking of the situation in this particular city, Gray says : 
 
 The results of the oral-reading tests showed that the pupils .... ranked 
 low in acciu-acy of pronunciation and in ability to attack new words. Class- 
 room observations revealed similar weaknesses Many teachers had no 
 
 / « 3 
 
 I matched a ci tlass from tF e pile, and somt 
 
 zr 
 
 zo 
 
 ¥/ 
 
 at th< same time s latching ano her, gave m s a cut 
 /2<7 /o // /S 
 
 aero s the knucli Ics which I hare 
 
 ly felt. I dc shed 
 
 f 9 /3 If 
 
 Fig. 3. — Silent reading by a good reader in the seventh grade 
 
 [phonetic] devices [for helping pupils], and some were almost helpless, if not 
 inaccurate, in their attempts to aid the pupil. Several principals stated that 
 many teachers had little or no knowledge or training in regard to the use of 
 phonics. As evidenced by the facts cited above, there is real need of giving 
 the problem of word analysis serious consideration in [this city]. Uniform 
 methods of developing independence and accuracy in pronunciation should be 
 considered, and teachers should be trained to make effective use of the adopted 
 method.' 
 
 Diagnosis of needs of poor readers by means of scientific devices. — 
 The scientific devices for measuring reading ability which were 
 
 ■ Elementary School Journal, XIX (March, 1919), 511-12. 
 
ig2i] 
 
 HOW TO TEACH BEGINNING READING 
 
 5S 
 
 described earlier not only aid in the broad study of the average 
 efficiency in reading instruction as illustrated in the foregoing 
 quotation, but are also especially useful in diagnosing the needs 
 of pupils who are having special difficulties with reading. A 
 number of excellent investigations of types of poor readers have 
 been pubUshed. Below is a paraphrase of Judd's description of 
 the reading defects of a poor fifth-grade reader whom we shall 
 call Grace, and the methods used to improve her reading. She 
 
 ^ /o 7 
 
 \Vh( n I hail 
 /S / 
 
 /y 
 
 X g 
 
 IZ 
 
 t'ioMi ^>'do{)r. lliioth 
 
 /O 
 
 zz 
 
 sodi to mak< 
 
 readj been : warming up hi \>,\U 
 
 /3 /f /< 
 
 7 
 V 
 
 7 
 
 13 // 
 
 man. in a r tl 
 /S 
 
 ¥o 
 
 Fio. 4. — Oral reading by the pupil whose record for silent reading is shown 
 in FiR. 3. 
 
 had attended three different schools up to the time of entering the 
 University of Chicago Elementxiry School. 
 
 Disliked silent reading. — Grace had been included in the tests 
 
 .... and proved to be a slow, inefficient reader She could 
 
 not unravel the intricacies of the printed lines which proved easy 
 
 to many of her classmates The school ph\-sician's record 
 
 showed that she was a normal, healthy child with no special defects 
 
56 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL [December 
 
 in eyes, ears, or throat Silent reading was particularly dis- 
 tasteful to her. She always settled down to it reluctantly 
 
 From the home came the same story. " She has never read a story 
 to herself, although she has several attractively illustrated children's 
 books. She frequently, however, after eagerly studying the illustra- 
 tions in a new book, begs to have the story read to her, saying,' You 
 read it, mother. I can't understand it very well when I read it 
 myself.'" 
 
 Tests revealed special difficulties. — The various tests given to 
 
 Grace revealed some interesting facts The pronunciation 
 
 of unfamiliar words seemed most difficult. She usually hesitated 
 a moment before attacking a new word and then whispered to 
 
 herself the spelling of the word, letter by letter Her rate in 
 
 silent reading showed an unusual condition. It was slower than 
 the oral rate From the data it was evident that her diffi- 
 culties in reading were due to a lack of familiarity with printed 
 words and a lack of method of working out new or imknown word 
 forms. 
 
 Eighteen weeks of special remedial training. — In an effort to 
 
 help her to overcome this handicap, she was given various types of 
 
 training during eighteen weeks, namely, sLx weeks devoted to a 
 
 great deal of oral reading, six weeks in drills on phonics and in 
 
 • word analysis, and six weeks including a great deal of silent reading. 
 
 Later tests and improvements.— The silent and oral-reading tests 
 which had been given before this special practice were repeated. 
 .... Grace now showed by her whole manner that she felt 
 competent to do the tests. She wrote her answers with a precision 
 
 and directness not at all characteristic of her earlier tests 
 
 Her teachers reported that she now read with much greater ease and 
 
 fluency of expression She seemed to enjoy reading silently 
 
 much more than before training Frequently she expressed a 
 
 preference for reading a passage silently, saying, "I can do it 
 faster.'" 
 
 Individual cases reveal need of balanced training plus individual 
 attention. — The foregoing statements give merely the bare out- 
 
 ■ Charles Hubbard ]udd, Reading: Us Nalurc and Devdopmenl, "Supphmentary 
 Educational Monographs," Vol. H, No. 4, pp. 82-89. Chicago: University of 
 Chicago, 1918. 
 
i93i] HOW TO TEACH BEGINNING READING 57 
 
 lines of the diagnosis and treatment of this case. A thorough 
 reading of the whole account as given by Judd, together with 
 accounts of many other cases, is desirable in order to get some 
 comprehension of the compie.xity of reading habits and processes, 
 and of the varied needs of poor readers. One pupil may read 
 poorly because of absence during certain crucial months in the 
 primarj' grades when the fundamentals of phonetics were being 
 taught. Another may read poorly because he has had too exclu- 
 sive phonetic training and never acquired correct habits and skill in 
 interpreting the meaning of printed words. However, in spite of 
 this variety of needs and processes, the diil&culties of poor readers 
 may be roughly classified into certain types, for which a well- 
 organized system of teaching reading will provide by balancing 
 the mechanical and interpretative features of the training as 
 outlined in the preceding articles. When an individual pupil, 
 because of absence or mental peculiarity, fails to profit from such 
 balanced training, he should be carefully tested and appropriate 
 individual training should be given him. 
 
 Investigators emphasize reading as a tool in acquiring ideas. — 
 Up to this point in our discussion of the results of scientific investiga- 
 tions of reading, we have considered the following matters: (i) 
 the difference between oral and silent reading and the consequent 
 need of specific training in silent reading; (2) the defects of systems 
 that neglect phonetic training and the need of such training; (3) 
 the diagnosing of the needs of especially poor readers by standard 
 tests and the means of correcting special defects. Finally, we may 
 note how investigators of reading processes have come more and 
 more to consider reading as a tool to be used in acquiring ideas 
 and as a process involving careful, controlled thinking instead of 
 mere passive perusal of a page. 
 
 Thortidike discusses processes 0/ understanding sentences. — 
 Professor Thorndike's tests of the understanding of sentences, as 
 previously noted, have led him to give special emphasis to the 
 idea that good reading involves good thinking. From the returns 
 from his tests, he illustrated at great length the failures of poor 
 readers to think carefully when reading a paragraph to obtain 
 answers to certain questions. 
 
58 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL 
 
 In commenting on the types of errors that pupils make in such 
 a reading test, Thomdike says : 
 
 There seems to be a strong tendency in human nature to accept as satis- 
 factory whatever ideas arise quickly — to trust any course of thought that 
 runs along fluently. If the question makes the pupil think of anything, or 
 if he finds anything in the paragraph that seems to belong to the question, he 
 accepts it without criticism This fishing around in the text for some- 
 thing to use, and its use without reorganization is perhaps the most debased 
 
 form of selective thinking which school work shows The extent to which 
 
 it prevails amongst pupils in even the higher grades shows the need for practice 
 in reading and study. I am inclined to think, however, that the cure for it 
 is not to repress the verbatim use of wrong, irrelevant or roughly appropriated 
 quotations, but to permit it plus careful e.xamination of the quotations to see 
 
 if they really do meet the need The comprehension of text books .... 
 
 [is] far above the level of merely "passive" or "receptive" work. When the 
 reading of text books .... is really passive or receptive, comprehension will 
 
 rarely result "To read" means "to think" as truly as does "to 
 
 evaluate" or "to invent" or "to demonstrate" or "to verify."' 
 
 Conclusion. — This quotation is quite typical of the recent 
 tendency among progressive investigators to think of reading 
 processes not merely in terms of the special "reading period" but 
 also in terms of vi^hat the pupils do with their textbooks and supple- 
 mentary books in geography, history, science, arithmetic, and 
 every other subject. In order to develop skill in the silent reading 
 of such material, many types of teaching technique and devices 
 are being organized in progressive schools. The description of 
 these, however, is beyond the scope of this series of articles wliich 
 is concerned merely with the methods, principles, and scientific 
 investigations^ of the teaching of "beg i nning reading." 
 
 ' E. L. Thorndike, "The Understanding of Sentences, " Elementary School Journal, 
 XVin (October, 1917), 98-114. 
 
 ' A reference which will supply the reader with further material, summarizing in 
 attractive, usable form the conclusions from many of the recent scientific investiga- 
 tions, is as follows: William S. Gray, "Principles of Method in the Teaching of 
 Reading as Derived from Scientific Investigation," EiglUeenth Yearbook oj the National 
 Society for the Study of Education, Part II. Bloomington, Illinois: Public School 
 Publishing Co., 1919. $1.10. 
 
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