Special Method in the Reading of Complete English Classics / In the Grades of the Common School

by Charles A. McMurry

If the teacher knows just what references will throw added light upon the lesson, what books and pages will be directly helpful, if he can appoint different pupils to look up particular references and sometimes even go to the library with them and search for the references, in grades from the fifth through the eighth, the result may be very helpful. In the class recitation it is necessary to gather up the fruits of this reference work with as little waste of time as possible, recognizing that it is purely collateral to the main purpose.

Pictures and maps are useful oftentimes as references. As children advance in the grades, they are capable of greater independence and judgment in the use of such materials. General, loose, and indefinite references are a sign of ignorance, carelessness, and lack of preparation on the teacher's part. They are discouraging and unprofitable to children. But we desire to see children broadening their views, extending their knowledge of books and of how to use them. The amount of good literature that can be well treated and read in the class is small, but much suggestive outside home and vacation reading may be encouraged, that will open a still wider and richer area of personal study.

3. In spite of all the precautions of the teacher, in spite of lively interest and intelligent study by the children, there will be many haltings and blunders, many inaccuracies in the use of eye and voice. These faults spring partly from habit and previous home influences. The worst faults are often those of which a child is unconscious, so habitual have they become. If we are to meet these difficulties wisely, we must start and keep up a strong momentum in the class. There should be a steady and strong current of effort in which all share. This depends, as has been often said, upon the power of the selection to awaken the thought and feeling of the children. It depends equally upon the pervasive spirit and energy of the teacher. If we try to analyze this complex phenomenon, we may find that, so far as the children are concerned, two elements are present, natural and spontaneous absorption in the ideas and sensibilities awakened by the author, and the bracing conviction that sustained effort is expected and required by the teacher. Children, to read well, must be free; they must feel the force of ideas and of the emotions and convictions awakened by them. They must also be conscious of that kind of authority and control which insists upon serious and sustained effort. Freedom to exercise their own powers and obedience to a controlling influence are needful. If the teacher can secure this right movement and ferment in a class, she will be able to correct the errors and change bad habits into the desired form of expression. The correction of errors, in the main, should be quiet, incidental, suggestive, not disturbing the child's thought and effort, not destroying the momentum of his sentiment and feeling. Let him move on firmly and vigorously; only direct his movement here and there, modify his tone by easy suggestions and pertinent questions, and encourage him as far as possible in his own effort to appreciate and express the author's idea.

In reading lessons there are certain purely formal exercises that are very helpful. The single and concert pronunciation of difficult or unusual words that come up in old and new lessons, the vocal exercises in syllabication and in vowel and consonant drill, are examples. They should be quick and vigorous, and preliminary to their application in lessons.

4. The teacher is only a guide and interpreter. With plenty of reserve power, he should only draw upon it occasionally. His chief business is not to show the children how to read by example, nor to be always explaining and amplifying the thought of the author. His aim should be to best call the minds of the children into strong action through the stimulation of the author's thought, and to go a step farther and reproduce and mould this thought into oral expression.

In order to call out the best efforts of children, a teacher needs to study well the art of questioning. The range of possibilities in questioning is very wide. If a rational, sensible question is regarded as the central or zero point, there are many degrees below it in the art of questioning and many degrees above it. Below it is a whole host of half-rational or useless questions which would better be left unborn: What does this word mean? Why didn't you study your lesson? Why weren't you paying attention? What is the definition of also? How many mistakes did Mary make?

Much time is sometimes wasted in trying to answer aimless or trivial questions: Peter, what does this strange word mean, or how do you pronounce it? Ethel may try it. Who thinks he can pronounce it better? Johnny, try it. Perhaps somebody knows how it ought to be. Sarah, can't you pronounce it? Finally, after various efforts, the teacher passes on to something else without even making clear the true pronunciation or meaning. This is worse than killing time. It is befuddling the children. A question should aim clearly at some important idea, and should bring out a definite result. The children should have time to think, but not to guess and dawdle, and then be left groping in the dark.

The chief aim of questions is to arouse vigor and variety of thought as a means of better appreciation and expression. Children read poorly because they do not see the meaning or do not feel the force of the sentiment. They give wrong emphasis and intonation. A good question is like a flash of lightning which suddenly reveals our standing-ground and surroundings, and gives the child a chance to strike out again for himself. His intelligence lights up, he sees the point, and responds with a significant rendering of the thought. But the teacher must be a thinker to ask simple and pertinent questions. He can't go at it in a loose and lumbering fashion. Lively and sympathetic and appreciative of the child's moods and feelings must he be, as well as clear and definite in his own perception of the author's meaning.

Questioning for meaning is equivalent to that for securing expression, and thus two birds are hit with one stone. A pointed question energizes thought along a definite line, and leads to a more intense and vivid perception of the meaning. This is just the vantage-ground we desire in order to secure good expression. We wish children not to imitate, but first to see and feel, and then to express in becoming wise the thought as they see it and feel it. This makes reading a genuine performance, not a parrot-like formalism.

5. Trying to awaken the mental energy and action of a class as they move on through a masterpiece, requires constant watchfulness to keep alive their sense-perceptions and memories, and to touch their imaginations into constructive effort at every turn in the road. Through the direct action of the senses the children have accumulated much variety of sense-materials, of country and town, of hill, valley, river, lake, fields, buildings, industries, roads, homes, gardens, seasons. Out of this vast and varied quarry they are able to gather materials with which to construct any landscape or situation you may desire. Give the children abundance of opportunity to use these collected riches, and to construct, each in his own way, the scenes and pictures that the poet's art so vividly suggests. Many of the questions we ask of children are designed simply to recall and reawaken images which lie dormant in their minds, or, on the other hand, to find out whether they can combine their old sense-perceptions so skilfully and vividly as to realize the present situation. Keen and apt questions will reach down into the depth of a child's life experiences and bring up concrete images which the fancy then modifies and adjusts to the present need. The teacher may often suggest something in his own observations to kindle like memories in theirs. Or, if the subject seems unfamiliar, he may bring on a picture from book or magazine. Sometimes a sketch or diagram on the board may give sense-precision and definiteness to the object discussed, even though it be rudely drawn. This constant appeal to what is real and tangible and experimental, not only locates things definitely in time and space, makes clear and plain what was hazy or meaningless, awakens interest by connecting the story or description with former experiences, but it sets in action the creative imagination which shapes and builds up new and pleasing structures, combining old and new. This kind of mental elaboration, which reaches back into the senses and forward into the imagination, is what gives mobility and adjustability to our mental resources. It is not stiff and rigid and refractory knowledge that we need. Ideas may retain their truth and strength, their inward quality, and still submit to infinite variations and adjustments. Water is one of the most serviceable of all nature's compounds, because it has such mobility of form, such capacity to dissolve and take into solution other substances, or of being absorbed and even lost sight of in other bodies. The ideas we have gathered and stored up from all sources are our building materials; the imagination is the architect who conceives the plan and directs the use of different materials in the growth of the new structures. The teacher's chief function in reading classes is, on the one hand, to see that children revive and utilize their sense-knowledge, and on the other, to wake the sleeping giant and set him to work to build the beauteous structures for which the materials have been prepared. But for this, teachers could be dispensed with. As Socrates said, they are only helpers; they stand by, not to perform the work, but to gently guide, to stimulate, and now and then to lend a helping hand over a bad place.