In this city the expenditures for supplementary textbooks have amounted to something more than $31,000 in the past 10 years. Approximately one-third of this sum was spent in the first seven years of the decade and more than $20,000 in the past three years. This indicates the rapid advance in this direction made under the present school administration but the supply of books still falls far short of the needs of the schools. A fair start has been made but nothing should be permitted to obstruct rapid progress in this direction.
SPELLING
Cleveland has set apart an average amount of program time for spelling. Possibly the study might more accurately be called word-study, since it aims also at training for pronunciation, syllabification, vocabulary extension, and etymology. Since much of the reading time is given to similar word-study, the figures presented in Table 4 are really too small to represent actual practice in Cleveland.
TABLE 4.—TIME GIVEN TO SPELLING
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| Hours per year | Per cent of grade time
|———————————-|————————————
Grade | Cleveland | 50 cities | Cleveland | 50 cities
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1 | 47 | 54 | 6.5 | 6.3
2 | 63 | 66 | 7.2 | 7.3
3 | 79 | 73 | 9.0 | 8.0
4 | 63 | 67 | 7.1 | 6.9
5 | 51 | 61 | 5.7 | 6.3
6 | 47 | 58 | 5.4 | 5.9
7 | 47 | 52 | 5.4 | 5.3
8 | 47 | 51 | 5.4 | 5.1
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Total | 444 | 482 | 6.5 | 6.4
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The general plan of the course is indicated in the syllabus:
"Two words are made prominent in each lesson. Their pronunciation, division into syllables, derivation, phonetic properties, oral and written spelling and meaning, are all to be made clear to pupils.
"The teaching of a new word may be done by using it in a sentence; by definition or description; by giving a synonym or the antonym; by illustration with object, action or drawing; and by etymology.
"Each lesson should have also from eight to 20 subordinate words taken from textbook or composition exercises…. Frequent supplementary dictation, word-building and phonic exercises should be given. Spell much orally…. Teach a little daily, test thoroughly, drill intensively, and follow up words misspelled persistently."
In most respects the work agrees with the usual practice in progressive cities: the teaching of a few words in each lesson; the frequent and continuous review of words already taught; taking the words to be taught from the language experience of the pupils; following up words actually misspelled; studying the words from many angles, etc.
In some respects the work needs further modernization. The words chosen for the work are not always the ones most needed. Whether children or adults, people need to spell only when they write. They need to spell correctly the words of their writing vocabulary, and they need to spell no others. More important still, they need to acquire the habit of watching their spelling as they write; the habit of spelling every word with certainty that it is correct, and the habit of going to word-lists or dictionary when there is any doubt.