In October, 1918, X returned to the College, seeking instruction, but Miss Fisk had discontinued her studies, and no teacher was available at the moment. In March, 1919, X’s mother reported that he had “done nothing” in reading and spelling at school, though he was not deficient in geography or arithmetic, and asked for assistance. Upon this report, X was invited to come for further instruction, which was given thereafter by the present writer.
The method previously undertaken was continued. The Riverside Primer was mastered, between March and June of 1919. Each new word was learned by spelling aloud and sounding. After several repetitions of this process, a new word would be assimilated into the vocabulary which could be read at sight, with the word as the unit of perception. In June of 1919, X could read any word in the Riverside Primer, either at sight or by spelling, and could write without error every letter of the alphabet, both small letters and capitals. He could also read simple matter which interested him in daily life, such as the weather reports, from newspapers.
From October, 1919, to June, 1920, X came for one hour each week, to be instructed. The Riverside First Reader was studied through. He made steady progress, as may best be seen from the repeated measurements on Trabue’s “Language Scale A,” which are illustrated in Figure 6 (page [77]).
In September, 1920, X entered grade 5B, being 14 years of age, three years retarded in school status, by the New York City age-grade norms. His speech defect was again noticeable. All through this year, till June, 1921, he came for one hour each week to take instruction in reading and spelling. The series of Riverside readers was now abandoned, in favor of the history and other books used regularly in grade 5B. Toward the end of that school year, some reading was also done from boys’ stories, in which X had spontaneously become interested during the summer of 1920.
From October, 1921, to May, 1922, stories written for boys were used as material for the reading lesson. X brought with him whatever book he happened to be reading at the moment, and the lesson was taken from it. By this time X had become so fond of silent reading as a pastime that several difficulties in oral reading, not previously present, developed. One of these was the tendency to guess at new words, without waiting to perceive them accurately, in order to get on with the story. Another was the tendency to leave out all well known and unimportant monosyllables, such as “and,” “the,” “but,” “of,” “who,” and so forth. These words he knew unerringly when he could be induced to look at them, but in silent reading he had evidently formed the habit of neglecting them altogether. These faults were corrected by practice in reading backwards, which offers no incentive to skip words.
Samples of X’s tests in reading are reproduced in Figures 6, 7, and 8, in order that an accurate idea may be conveyed of his growth in power to gain meaning from the printed page.
X’s account of a week’s reading, reproduced in Figure 9 (page [86]), gives an idea of the amount of outside reading regularly done, and at the same time an idea of proficiency in writing and spelling words, attained in January, 1922.
A partial list of books read for pleasure, on his own initiative by X, between December, 1921, and May, 1922, gives an idea of the practice he had in silent reading outside of formal instruction. This is presented on page [85], as follows.
Fig. 6—Part 1.
The five parts of Figure 6 show how X improved as measured by Trabue’s “Language Scale A,” from Feb., 1918, to Dec., 1921.