And here I must foreclose some criticisms which have been made on this book.
First,—that the sentences are not interesting or important. That is of no moment. Children are interested in separate words; especially if they are to write them as well as read them. I have never seen children tired of the words, and of making them.
Some persons have disputed the pronunciation of some of the words. There are, perhaps, half a dozen inadvertencies in the book which can be corrected in a second edition.
I indicate no difference between the s when it is sounded sharp, and when soft like z. But I think this will never lead to any practical error; because the language is vernacular, and the child has a teacher.
I affirm that the article a is sounded ah in the spoken language, when it is not accented. Also that in such words as deject, reject, &c., the two e's sound alike, like most unaccented e's in the language.
For a time, there is no need for the children to have a book at all. Let them have a lesson fifteen minutes long in which they write the words after the dictation of the teacher.
Let the written words remain on the black-board, and after some other employments have intervened, let them read the words off the black-board.
When they have mastered all the letters, it is a good plan to give them the book, and let them find the words. Showing them a line, ask them to look along and find a certain word.
They will be pleased to find that they can read in a book, and will like to copy on their slates the columns of words, which may be made another exercise of a quarter of an hour. In my Kindergarten, they write the words, after the teacher, on their blackboards; and afterwards write out of the printed books upon the slate. I have hitherto had more time, in proportion, given to the reading than my own judgment quite approves; because parents are so urgent, and measure their children's progress so exclusively by their power of reading; and, if they do not learn a great deal faster than children usually learn to read, distrust the system, and interfere.
Even if this method did prove longer than other methods of learning to read, I should wish to pursue it, because to find that the same letter always represents the same sound, cultivates the mind's power of classification, and gives it confidence in its own little reasoning. But I have found that it is a shorter, not a longer, process. I have known a child of three years old, who was found to know how to read, when there was no thought of teaching him, but his brother of five years old had been taught to read upon the black-board in his presence. A child of seven years old learnt to read and write print beautifully, in three months, in lessons of ten minutes, given only when she asked for them. And in those cases there was not the additional advantage of a class. Several children in my own Kindergarten, in my first season, when I never gave half an hour in the day to reading, not only mastered my first Nursery Reading-Book, but got upon the anomalous words, and learnt to read so far, that the second season they could read fluently. If as much time was given, in the Kindergarten, to mere reading, as is given in the public schools, they would, doubtless, have learnt in three months, but I would not give the time; for I believe it is so much better for the whole nature, i. e., all the powers of sense and apprehension, to be cultivated by examining objects.