I have also another difficulty to contend with. Children are taught their letters at home, and the parents interfere to help, and really hinder by bringing in the old sounds of the letters and the anomalous words, before I am ready for them. There is no objection to the children's having the First Nursery-Book at home to use and copy on their slates, provided those at home will confine themselves to pronouncing the words to them instead of attempting to spell them.
The question, however, comes at last, But how are they to attain the rest of the language? Before I had any experience, I myself thought this was to be a great difficulty. In the first instance, after I had brought my little pupil to the point that he could print correctly any word that I pronounced to him, and could read at sight any of my selected words, I gave him a piece of poetry to read, beginning—
"Sleep, baby, sleep."
He read it slay-ape bahby, slay-ape.
I said, "No, that first word is sleep." He was surprised, and wondered why it was written so.
I said, "Perhaps they used to say slayape, but they say sleep now; and in books there are a good many such words. Now I will rub out sl (I pronounced this combination with one impulse of the voice) and put a w, and say, now, what is that?" "O, That is weep." Now I rubbed out the w, and put d. He immediately said, "That is deep." I said, "Now you write sleep, and under it put weep, deep, peep, keep, steep, sweep, creep." He did so, at once, and then he took great pleasure in getting a paper and lead-pencil, and writing the whole column, which, of course, he never forgot. I proceeded in the same manner, till he had not only written all the song, but all the analogues of each word,—and it was wonderful how soon he could read. The scientific habit of mind which was attained by classing the words as he learned them, has shown itself throughout his education. He never learned a so-called spelling-lesson, but he scarcely ever wrote a word wrongly spelled; and it has been a uniform observation that children taught on this method always write without errors. Each variation from the standard so strongly fixed in their minds makes a great impression; and to write the words in groups, makes these anomalies remembered in groups.
In my own Kindergarten, I give to my class "Mother Goose's Melodies." They know many of them by heart; but I make them sit in class, and each, in turn, read one word, in order to teach them to keep the place, and when they finish a verse, I ask them to find some word, and often make it the nucleus of a group of words of the same kind, to be written upon the black-board and slates as above. But I think it is a good plan, before giving a book, to call their attention to the initial sounds of thin, then, shin, chin, and ask them what letter stands for these. Of course they will say they do not know. Then you can say "There is none; for the people who made these letters did not have these sounds in their language; and so, when they came to write English, they put a t and h together to stand for one sound; and c and h for another; and s and h for another."
Lists of words should then be dictated and written: such as thin, think, thing, thrift, thrill, thick, bath, lath, doth, sloth, quoth, pith, smith, fifth, filth, width, depth, tenth, truth, thresh, threshold, methodist, synthetic, pathetic, cathartic, then, them, with, this, hither, thither, nether, tether, hitherto, farthing, withhold, brethren, char, chart, charm, chaff, chant, larch, march, parch, starch, chest, chess, chin, chick, chill, chit, chink, chintz, rich, chirrup, inch, pinch, clinch, flinch, winch, finch, filch, milch, clinch, trench, bench, wrench, quench, shin, ship, sharp, shark, shed, shell, shelf, shaft, shorn, shred, shrift, shrimp, shrill, flesh, mesh, fresh, dish, fish, wish, harsh, marsh, sheriff, shiver, relish, cherish, perish, freshet, finish, prudish, bluish, garnish, tarnish, varnish, blemish, refresh. Attention can then be called to the words beginning with wh, which are pronounced (as they were written in Saxon) by uttering the h before the w; as when, whet, whelk, whelp, whelm, wherry, whiz, whig, whip, whiff, whist, whisk, whirl, which, whimper, pronounced hwen, hwet, &c.
I suppose I need not say that the consideration of one of the extra consonants will be enough for one lesson.
The next step is to learn the diphthongs, that is, the proper—which I consider the only—diphthongs. Make the children pronounce oi, and see that two sounds are slid together; and then let them write on their slates, in different columns, boil, coil, foil, soil, toil, moil, spoil, coin, join, groin, point, joint, joist, hoist, foist, moist, cloister, surloin, exploit, void, &c.; also boy, coy, joy, toy, cloy, loyal, royal, envoy, enjoy, &c.