As no two teachers will have the same material for Nature Study, the reading material will not be multiplied here.
Gradually, as the pupils can stand it, the sentences are lengthened a little as necessary, and massed into paragraphs.
The use of the "Mother Goose Rhymes" as a means of enlivening the first year reading lessons is also treated as follows by Mrs. Lida McMurry. (Taken from School and Home Education for October, 1902.)
Many of the children on entering school are well versed in Nursery Rhymes. They enjoy repeating them. Other children may not know them so well, but soon learn them from their classmates. Teachers and pupils may have a happy time together with Mother Goose, and at the same time the pupils are learning to read without realizing that what they are doing is something that they are not accustomed to.
I will suggest a few ways in which these rhymes may be made the basis for reading lessons:—
Take this rhyme—
1. Dance, Thumbkin, dance,
Dance, ye merrymen, every one;
For Thumbkin he can dance alone,
Thumbkin he can dance alone.
The second, third, fourth, and fifth stanzas are like the first, only Foreman, Longman, Ringman, and Littleman are in turn substituted for Thumbkin.
The children first learn to act out each stanza as they recite it together. The thumb is held up and moved about as if dancing, as the first line is given. All the fingers dance as the second line is recited. The thumb dances alone as the third and fourth lines are repeated.
The teacher then repeats the stanza alone, and the children's fingers accompany her.