Such testimony might be repeated a thousand times over, by our pupils of to-day—if they were able to describe their common experience.
It was the first vision of the goal that gave meaning, motive, and conscious gladness to Hugh Miller’s study. Such motive and such meaning should pervade the earliest lessons in reading, and should be consciously recognized by pupil as well as teacher. We repeat, then: the teacher’s first effort, after becoming acquainted with her children, is to awaken this conscious desire to read, and to secure intelligent coöperation in her exercises.
One teacher suggests writing upon the board some sentence which has been whispered to her by the children, and then calling an older child from another room to read the secret. This is done again and again, until the children are eager to share the power which their comrade possesses, and turn gladly to the tasks required of them, that they may the sooner reach their goal.
There is a wide difference between such teaching and the routine drill which does not enlist the child’s desire. The enthusiastic bicyclist would smile if asked to exchange his morning ride to the city for an hour’s exercise upon a fixed “bicycle exerciser” in the back hall. Nor could the most skilful pedagogue convince him that the exercise involved in making the wheel go round is as valuable as the spin which carries him to his destination, through the fresh morning air, along roads bordered with flowered fields. Yet the contrast is no more marked than that between the task of the syllable-pronouncer, who obediently performs his meaningless labor, and that of the child who, with conscious and earnest desire, sets himself to learn to read.
In order to give some sense of immediate achievement, the sentences of the first lessons should express thoughts in which the children are interested.
- This is Kate.
- Kate can read.
- Kate has a book.
- Read to me, Kate.
- Kate can read.
- I can read, too.
- Kate has a book.
- I have a book, too.
- See Kate’s book!
- See my book!
- Kate has a doll.
- I have a doll, too.
- Kate has a kitty.
- I have a dog.
- Kate likes her doll.
- I like my dog.
- See my dog!
- See Kate’s little kitty!
- Come, little Kitty.
- Come to me, Kitty.
The object of these preparatory lessons is to give some consciousness of the purpose of reading, and some sense of achievement. The sentences are the children’s, obtained in a conversation concerning Kate, who is an older pupil, or some pictured child. The sentence is the unit, and is read by the teacher. The children repeat the sentence after her reading.