Interest and vigor of thought are certain to help right expression and reading. Reading, like every other study, should be based upon realities. When there is real thought and feeling in the children, a correct expression of them is more easily secured than by formal demands or by intimidation.
The stories to be read in second or third grade may be fuller and longer than the brief outline sentences used for board-work in the first grade. Besides, these tales, being classic and of permanent value, do not lose their charm by repetition.
METHOD
By oral reading, we mean the giving of the thought obtained from a printed page to others through the medium of the voice.
There is first the training of the eye in taking in a number of words at a glance—a mechanical process; then the interpretation of these groups of words—a mental process; next the making known of the ideas thus obtained to others, by means of the voice—also a mechanical process.
The children need special help in each step. We are apt to overdo one at the expense of the others.
1. Eye-training is the foundation of all good reading. Various devices are resorted to in obtaining it. We will suggest a few, not new at all, but useful.
(a) A strip of cardboard, on which is a clause or sentence, is held before the class, for a moment only, and then removed. The length of the task is increased as the eye becomes trained to this kind of work.
(b) The children open their books at a signal from the teacher, glance through a line, or part of one, indicated by the teacher, close book at once and give the line.
(c) The teacher places on the board clauses or sentences bearing on the lesson, and covers with a map. The map is rolled up to show one of these, which is almost immediately erased. The children are then asked to give it. The map is then rolled up higher, exposing another, which also is speedily erased—and so on until all have been given to the children and erased.