Of course these first efforts are not reading. They simply represent the children’s memory of the teacher’s words and tone. Often, when asked to read alone, the child dashes at the wrong sentence with his pointer, which vainly wanders in search of the right one. But just as the frequent observation of the loved story in the picture book not only fixes the words in their order, but enables the young listener to find some of them upon the page, so, by repetition of these first sentences, the words are at last held in the mind, and are recognized in new places and under new relations. The attentive eye will recognize the new words, first in their wonted place in the sentence, then when isolated. At first the words selected for repetition and recognition are those which present fewest difficulties;—not by any means the shortest words—as a, is, too—but the meaningful words, the nouns and adjectives, and verbs which denote action. Kate, book, doll, dog, kitty—these are the first and easiest, in the lessons written above. Later, see and likes, with can read. Later still, I have, this is—while is and a will not be emphasized as units until the eyes have been trained to distinguish more readily, and the words have become familiar through constant repetition.
Such lessons should continue for several weeks, introducing the various dear and oft-seen objects of the child’s environment, and the actions with which he has long been familiar. The sentences should be worth reading, and grouped in coherent paragraphs. Drill in recognizing the words should follow the sentence reading, in every day’s lesson.
When the children can recognize at sight a vocabulary of one hundred to two hundred words, they should begin to compare them, and to place in groups those which are alike in sound. For example: book, look, and brook are known; red and fed; cat, hat, and pat; Fan, ran, can, and Dan. Placed in lists, their similarity is evident:
- book
- look
- took
- fed
- red
- bed
- cat
- hat
- sat
- Fan
- ran
- man
Some one volunteers to increase the list, adding took, bed, sat, and man. Here is the beginning of the analysis of words into their sounds, and with this lesson a new feature appears in our word study.
Such lessons in sentence reading as have been suggested, if continued long enough and with sufficient discretion on the part of the teacher, might enable a class to read independently—for, even without the teacher’s direction, obvious likenesses and differences in words are noted by the children, and rules are deduced therefrom. But the mastery of a large vocabulary is readily secured only through attention to the common laws of pronunciation, and familiarity with the sound units. Thus far every word has been presented as a new unit. Now the children should learn that these words are like many others in form, and that the pronunciation of one serves as a key to the many. Knowing book, all monosyllables ending in ook can at once enter their vocabulary of recognizable words; knowing Fan, all monosyllables with the an ending are known. The missing factor is the knowledge of the sounds of the separate letters which are initials in these group words—m-an, F-an, c-an, r-an, t-an, p-an. At this juncture these sounds should be taught.