The Essentials of Method in Teaching Children to Read #262252

Reading may be considered as the foundation of all our school work. If this foundation is not strong and lasting the education that is built thereon is necessarily weak and shifting. Occasionally we hear reading described as a getting of thought from the printed page, and everything is labelled reading that involves the sounding Of words, without much reference to'the comprehension Of the content, or the amount of mental activity involved. The fact is, however, that reading is not getting thought from the printed page for the very good reason that there is no thought thereon. There are symbols, words, which may or may not arouse mental activity or interest in the pupil, as his mind possesses or does not possess the ideas represented by such words and symbols. This essential truth must be fully appreciated. By the teacher Of reading who would make her work successful with children of the first school years. Teachers who have had successful experience in the work realize that primary reading presents one of the most diffi cult problems for solution in the whole range of teaching. More time and thought have been devoted to this feature of school work by practical and theoretical educators than to. Any other subject in the curriculum, and, as a natural result,we have methods and devices ad nauseam. With almost every new series of readers, some novel and only way of teaching children to read is advertised and heralded as the best, though a close examination of the content and method of many Of these readers Often disclose little of real novelty in the series beyond its name.