Reading aloud and separately is excellent for several purposes. It tests capacity: it teaches correct pronunciation by practice, as well as the mastery of difficult words: it provides a good teacher with frequent opportunities of helping the child to understand what he reads.
But as his schooling proceeds he should be accustomed more and more to read to himself: for that, I repeat, is the master-key.
LECTURE IV
CHILDREN'S READING (II)
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1917
I
In our talk, Gentlemen, about Children's Reading we left off upon a list, drawn up by Mr Holmes in his book 'What Is, and What Might Be,' of the things that, apart from physical nourishment and exercise, a child instinctively desires.
He desires
(1) to talk and to listen;
(2) to act (in the dramatic sense of the word);
(3) to draw, paint and model;
(4) to dance and sing;
(5) to know the why of things;
(6) to construct things.
Let us scan through this catalogue briefly, in its order.
No. (1). To talk and to listen—Mr Holmes calls this the communicative instinct. Every child wants to talk with those about him, or at any rate with his chosen ones—his parents, brothers, sisters, nurse, governess, gardener, boot-boy (if he possess these last)—with other children, even if his dear papa is poor: to tell them what he has been doing, seeing, feeling: and to listen to what they have to tell him.