Special Method in Primary Reading and Oral Work with Stories

by Charles A. McMurry

FOLK-LORE STORIES AS READING EXERCISES FOR FIRST GRADE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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