Making all possible permutations, the child sees that only one order of words is capable of bringing a meaning out of the confusion:
Roll the white handkerchief.
the white handkerchief roll.
white the handkerchief roll.
white roll handkerchief the.
Lessons and Commands on the Verb
The children take considerable delight in our verb lessons which develop through interpretations of actions. We use packs of red cards, tied with an elastic, each pack containing ten cards. The child executes the actions indicated on each card, one after the other. He may afterward copy the cards—an exercise specially attractive to very young children.
Examples:
—walk, sing, jump, dance, bow, sit, sleep, wake, pray, sigh.
—write, erase, weep, laugh, hide, draw, read, speak, listen, run.
—arrange, clean, dust, sweep, button, lace, tie, hook, greet, brush.
—comb, wash, wipe, embrace, kiss, smile, yawn, scowl, stare, breathe.
These are fairly common words, representing actions more or less familiar to the pupils. But this exercise is only an introduction to the real verb-lessons. For these the teacher selects, as subject for a lesson, a series of synonymous verbs. Their shades of meaning are taught to the children by translating them into action, the teacher executing the action herself. She then distributes around the class commands making use of the verbs in question. There may be several copies of a given command if the pupils are very numerous. The child reads by himself the card he has received, executing the action from memory of what he has seen the teacher do. We have tested experimentally the Italian material (i.e., the verbs in parentheses), as follows:
Subject:
lay, throw, toss, hurl (posare, gettare, lanciare, scagliare).
Commands:—