“Oh, yes,” says a reader, “as in the ‘Cock Robin’ lesson; grant that the principle is sound—and there is much to be said on both sides of that question—but grant it, who in the world could get through all the pasting and cutting and general messing preparatory to the great lesson? No; the method of the books may be only second-best, but ready-made books must do for me. I have no time to make my own apparatus.”

I must own that the cutting and pasting was very clumsy, but the lesson served its purpose because it induced a good friend to education[16] to have a delightful ‘Little Pussy’ box prepared for us, loose words, nice big type, two lines in a bag. Whoso learns ‘Little Pussy’ as it should be learned will know at least one hundred words—not a bad stock-in-trade for a beginner—all of them good useful words that we want every day. There is one objection; such contractions as ‘I’ll’ are ugly at the best, and I hope that in the word-lessons based upon ‘Little Pussy,’ pieces will be chosen in which this fault is avoided.

Steps.—​And now, we begin. Matériel: Tommy’s box of loose letters, the new ‘Little Pussy’ box, pencil and paper, or much better, blackboard and chalk. We write up in good big print hand ‘Pussy.’ Tommy watches with interest: he knows the letters, and probably says them as we write. Besides, he is prepared for the great event of his life; he knows he is going to begin to learn to read to-day. But we do not ask anything yet of his previous knowledge. We simply tell him that the word is ‘pussy.’ Interest at once; he knows the thing, pussy, and the written symbol is pleasant in his eyes because it is associated with an existing idea in his mind. He is told to look at the word ‘pussy’ until he is sure he would know it again. Then he makes ‘pussy’ from memory with his own loose letters. Then the little bag containing our two lines in loose words is turned out, and he finds the word ‘pussy’; and, lastly, the little sheet with the poem printed on it is shown to him, and he finds ‘pussy,’ but is not allowed yet to find out the run of the rhyme. ‘Coat, little, like, is, her, warm, I, so,’ are taught in the same way, in less time than it takes to describe the lesson. When each new word is learned, Tommy makes a column of the old ones, and reads up and down and cris-cras, the column on the blackboard.

Reading Sentences.—​He knows words now, but he cannot yet read sentences. Now for the delight of reading. He finds at our dictation, amongst his loose words, ‘pussy—is—warm,’ places them in ‘reading’ order, one after the other, and then reads off the sentence. Joy, as of one who has found a new planet! And Tommy has indeed found a new power. Then, ‘her—little—coat—is—warm,’ ‘Pussy—is—so—little,’ ‘I—like—pussy,’ ‘Pussy—is—little—like—her—coat,’ and so on through a dozen more little arrangements. If the rhyme can be kept a secret till the whole is worked out, so much the better. To make the verses up with his own loose words will give Tommy such a delicious sense that knowledge is power, as few occasions in after life will afford. Anyway, reading is to him a delight henceforth, and it will require very bad management indeed to make him hate it.

Tommy’s Second Lesson.—​Tommy promises himself another reading lesson next day, but he has instead a spelling lesson, conducted somewhat in this way:—

He makes the word ‘coat’ with his letters, from memory if he can; if not, with the pattern word. Say ‘coat’ slowly; give the sound of the c. ‘Take away c, and what have we left?’ A little help will get ‘oat’ from him. How would you make ‘boat’ (say the word very slowly, bringing out the sound of b). He knows the sounds of the letters, and says b-oat readily; fl-oat, two added sounds, which you lead him to find out; g-oat, he will give you the g, and find goat a charming new word to know; m-oat, he easily decides on the sound of m; a little talk about moat; the other words are too familiar to need explanation. Tommy will, no doubt, offer ‘note,’ and we must make a clean breast of it and say, ‘No, note is spelt with other letters’; but what other letters we do not tell him now. Thus he comes to learn incidentally and very gradually that different groups of letters may stand for the same sounds. But we do not ask him to generalise; we only let him have the fact that n-oat does not spell the symbol we express by ‘note.’ ‘Stoat’—he will be able to give the sounds of the initial letters, and stoat again calls for a little talk—another interesting word. He has made a group of words with his letters, and there they are on the blackboard in a column, thus—

He reads the column up and down and cris-cras; every word has a meaning and carries an idea. Then the loose words he knows are turned out, and we dictate new sentences, which he arranges: ‘I—like—her—goat’; ‘her—little—stoat—is—warm,’ and so on, making the new words with loose letters.

Unknown Words.—​Now for a new experience. We dictate ‘pussy is in the boat.’ Consternation! Tommy does not know ‘in’ nor ‘the.’ ‘Put counters for the words you don’t know; they may soon come in our lessons,’ and Tommy has a desire and a need—that is, an appetite for learning.

Like Combinations have Different Sounds.—​We deal with the remaining words in the same way: ‘little’ gives brittle, tittle, skittle: pussy, is, I, and her, give no new words. ‘Like’ gives mike and pike. ‘So’ gives no, do (the musical ‘do’), and lo! From ‘warm’ we get arm, harm, charm, barm, alarm; we pronounce warm as arm. Tommy perceives that such a pronunciation is wrong and vulgar, and sees that all these words are sounded like ‘arm,’ but not one of them like ‘warm’—that is, he sees that the same group of letters need not always have the same sound. But we do not ask him to ‘make a note of’ this new piece of knowledge; we let it grow into him gradually, after many experiences.