Elastic bodies Balls Rubber
Non-resilient bodies Wooden
Odors of Tobacco smoke
Burned sugar
Incense
Burned maple
Odors of burning
substances 		Wood Various applications to
practical life.
Straw
Paper
Guessing games Wool
Cotton
Edibles
Exercises of practical life milk gruel (milk and flour);
diluted wine;
sweet wine;
turned wine (vinegar), etc.
Bells of metal
of terracotta

SIMULTANEOUS READING AND WRITING

At this point, we may bring in the chart with the vowels, painted red. The child sees "irregular figures outlined in color." Give the child the vowels made of red wood. He is to place them on the corresponding figures of the chart. He is made to touch the wooden vowels, running his finger around them in the way they are written. They are called by their names. The vowels are arranged according to similarity in shape (reading):

o e a
i u

Then the child is commanded: "Show me the letter o! Put it in its place!" Then he is asked: "What letter is this?" It will be found at this point that many children make a mistake, if they merely look at the letter, but guess rightly when they touch it. It is possible accordingly to distinguish the various individual types, visual, motory, etc.

Next the child is made to touch the letter outlined on the chart, first with his forefinger only, then with the fore and middle fingers, finally with a little wooden skewer to be held like a pen. The letter must always be followed around in the way it is written.

The consonants are drawn in blue and arranged on various charts, according to similarity in shape (reading, writing). The movable alphabet in blue wood is added to this. The letters are to be superimposed on the chart as was done for the vowels. Along with the alphabet we have another series of charts, where, beside the consonant identical with the wooden letter there are painted one or more figures of objects, the names of which begin with the letter in question. Beside the long-hand letter, there is also painted in the same color a smaller letter in print type. The teacher, naming the consonants in the phonic method, points to the letter, then to the chart, pronouncing the name of the objects which are painted there, and stressing the first letter: e.g., "m ... man ... m: Give me M!" "Put it where it belongs!" "Follow around it with your finger!" Here the linguistic defects of the children may be studied.

The tracing of the letters in the way they are written begins the muscular education preparatory to writing. One of our little girls of the motory type when taught by this method reproduced all the letters in pen and ink long before she could identify them. Her letters were about eight millimetres high and were written with surprising regularity. This same child was generally successful in her manual work.

The child, in looking at the letters, identifying them, and tracing them in the way they are written, is preparing himself both for reading and writing at the same time. The two processes are exactly contemporaneous. Touching them and looking at them brings several senses to bear on the fixing of the image. Later the two acts are separated: first looking (reading), then touching (writing). According to their respective type, some children learn to read first, others to write first.

Reading: As soon as the child has learned to identify the letters and also to write them, he is made to pronounce them. Then the alphabet is arranged in phonetic order. This order is to be varied according to individual defects made apparent while the child is pronouncing spontaneously the sounds of the consonants or vowels, or the words illustrating the consonants on the charts. We begin by showing the child and having him pronounce, first, syllables and, then, words which contain the letters he is able to pronounce well. Then we go on to the sounds he has trouble with, finally to those he cannot pronounce at all (linguistic correction). The phonomimic correction of speech requires special discussion. In primary schools speech correction should be in the hands of a specially trained teacher, like gymnastics, manual training and singing. Should no defects in speech appear in the child, the letters of the alphabet should be taught in the order of physiological phonetics.

Beside the big long-hand letters should be placed the small letters in print type. The letter is taught; then recognition is prompted by asking as each large letter is reached: "I want the little one like it." The two types of letter appear also on the illustrated charts. Next the printed letter is shown, with the request: "Give me the big letter that goes with it." Finally: "What letter is it?" The little letters are not "touched," because they are never to be written.

DRAWING AND WRITING

The child is given a sheet on which appear a circle and a square in outline. The circle is filled in with a red pencil, the square with blue (insets). Smaller and smaller circles are next given, also circles and triangles. They are variously disposed on the page. They are to be filled in with colored pencils. Then comes the tracing. The black lines are followed around with colored pencils: the circle, the triangle, the square. This comes easily to the child who has been taught to trace with the wooden skewer the figures outlined on the inset-charts. Writing follows immediately on the exercises in tracing with the skewer on the charts of the written alphabet. Some help can be given the child by having him darken with a black pencil the letter written on the copy book by the teacher. As the child writes, his attention should be directed to the fact that he is writing on a limited plane surface; that he begins at the top, moving from left to right and little by little coming down the page.

Séguin's method began with shafts and curves. His copybooks for the shafts were prepared as follows: the shaft to be executed by the child was delimited by two points, connected by a very light line. In the margin of the pages appear two shafts to be executed by the teacher. Similarly for the curves: ( ( ( (. He has the printed capitals drawn as combinations of shafts and curves: B, D, etc.