Rollo Learning to Read

by Jacob Abbott

That is the beginning of the story; but I wish to stop a moment to ask you to look at the letters which it is printed with, and see whether they are as large as the reading before it. Is it printed in just as large letters, or larger, or smaller? Yes, it is smaller. I am going to have all the story printed in smaller print. The reason is because the principal thing I wish to do now, is to explain to you how to read, and I only wish for the story to help me,—so I put it in smaller print, or as they generally call it smaller type. It is very often so in books. One part is printed in larger, and the other part in smaller type. The most important is in large type. The least important is in small type. If you will ask your father or mother, or your brother or sister, if you have one old enough, they will show you books with large and small print in them. Whenever you see any thing printed in smaller print than the rest of the book, you ought not to read right on without thinking any thing of it; but you ought to pause a minute, and observe it, and think what the reason is. Now I will begin my story again in small print.

Once there was a man who thought he would go up upon a mountain; so he rode along on his horse till he came as near to the mountain as he could, in the road,—and then he turned off into the woods and rode on until he came to the foot of the mountain. He could ride no farther; so he tied his horse to a tree.

Then he began to walk up the mountain.

Do you see that when we come to the word tree, just above there, that we leave off printing in that line. There is a period, and then the rest of the line has nothing in it. It is blank, as they call it, that is white, all white paper. The next part of the story begins in the next line. The next part of the story is, these words, “Then he began,” and that is printed in the next line. And if you look at it, you will see that it is not exactly at the beginning of the line. The word “Then” is not printed as near the side of the page as the other lines above it are. There is a little space left blank. Do you see the little space left blank before the “Then”? Now what do you suppose is the reason why we left off in the middle of the line and began again in the next line, leaving a little blank space? Why, it is because I had finished telling you all about the man’s coming to the mountain, and was now going to tell you about his going up the mountain, and so I thought it would be best to leave off for that line, and begin again in the next. Should you like to know what such a place is called? It is called a new paragraph. A new paragraph is made whenever we come to any new part of the story. If you look back over the leaves of this book you will find a great many new paragraphs on all the pages. If any person says any thing in the story, we put what he says in a paragraph by itself. See if you can find some new paragraphs.

Now, when you come to any new paragraph in your reading, you ought not to read right forward without stopping or noticing it at all. You should pause a little when one paragraph ends, and then begin again when the new paragraph begins, so that those who hear you read, and who are not looking over, may know by the sound of your voice, that you have come to a new paragraph.

Now I will go on with the story, again, beginning at the new paragraph.

Then he began to walk up. He scrambled through the bushes for some time, and at last came out into a smooth, but muddy path. Here, however, he was in no little difficulty, for the path was so slippery that notwithstanding all he could do, he seemed rather to be sliding down, than climbing up.

Here we come to the end of another paragraph. And I wish you to look at the word “down” in the last line. Do you see any thing strange about it? Is it printed like the other words?

Once I asked some children to look at a word printed so, and to tell me what the difference was between it and other words. One said it looked fainter. Another said it looked smaller. A third said it was not printed with good ink. But the true explanation is, the letters of the word are slanting. That is all. It makes the word look a little fainter.

You will see that the letters are different by looking first at the d in “sliding,” which comes before “down,” and then looking at the d in “down.” The d in “sliding” is straight. The d in “down” is slanting; all the other letters in down are slanting. Do you know what this kind of printing is called? It is called Italic.

The word “down” in the story is printed in Italics. The reason why it is printed in Italics is because I wanted you to notice it particularly. It is remarkable that while the man was trying to get up, he should, instead of that, slide down. So I had the word printed differently, that you might notice it particularly. Whenever you are reading and come to any word printed in Italics, you must notice it, and speak it very distinctly, for it is an important word.