Reading: How to Teach It

by Sarah Louise Arnold

There has been some question among teachers as to the time for teaching sounds of the letters. It is wise to defer this teaching until the children have acquired some little facility in reading, and understand its purpose, that their work may not be approached from the mechanical side solely. Again, the vocabulary which the children already know reveals groups of similar words and suggests the wisdom of analysis and classification. And, further, the too early attempt to study the lists of similar words and to select and emphasize them for use in reading, drives the children at once to their most difficult task. It is much easier to recognize Hiawatha and arrow, because they are long and different, and seem hard, than to name promptly the elusive can, ran, and tan, which seem so easy and yet are so nearly alike as to be formidable obstacles to the success of the untrained observer. The climax of objection is reached when we cite the tendency to make sentences solely for the sake of using certain words, thus destroying the element of thought value in the sentence. “Does the fat rat see the cat on the mat?” is far more difficult for a child than is “Hiawatha lived in a wigwam with old Nokomis”—for the reasons above named.

The mastery of words is an essential element in learning to read. Our common mistake is, not that we do such work too well, but that we make it the final aim of the reading lesson, and lead the children to feel that they can read when they are merely able to pronounce words. Perhaps lack of careful attention to the form of words is quite as serious a mistake, for it results in carelessness in reading.

The study of form and of sound should be associated, but attention to sound alone should precede any attempt to master the form as suggesting sound. Children should be taught to recognize and to distinguish sounds, to repeat them accurately, to speak them distinctly, before they are taught to copy the single characters which represent these sounds. To hear, to repeat, to compare, to distinguish sounds, should be the order of the instruction.

Careless speech and indistinct articulation often arise from imperfect hearing, or indifferent attention to what is said. Children should be trained in the early lessons to hear, and to repeat, exactly what is said. The repetition is a test of the child’s hearing. Begin with short sentences. Speak them clearly, in a moderate voice, requiring the children to repeat after once hearing. Gradually increase the length of sentence, but do not increase the volume of voice; speak distinctly, and expect the children to be attentive enough to hear an ordinary tone; teach them to respond in the same tone, with clear articulation. Continue this exercise until a long sentence can be accurately returned; then pronounce lists of words beginning with letters which demand careful articulation. When these have been mastered, draw attention to initial sounds, and then to the letters which represent them. Work with these until every letter suggests its sounds to the pupils, whether in a new or in a familiar word. With little children, the sound should be taught first in connection with initial letters always.

A successful device consists in allowing each pupil to represent a certain sound. If the sound is the initial sound in his own name, it will be easy for the children to remember. Thus—John can always suggest the sound of j, Mary the sound of m, Peter the sound of p, and so on. A class of children aided in this way will master the sounds of the letters in a very short time.

Having learned, through the initials, the sounds which various letters represent, the next step will be to analyze monosyllables into their sounds. Select first those containing short vowels, in order to avoid the difficulty of the silent letter. The preliminary drill with the initials will have made this step an easy one to take.

Whenever a type word is represented, as black, for example, the children should be taught to suggest other words which rhyme with the pattern, as crack, back, lack, etc. If in every such case the common element is studied and mastered, in a few weeks the children will become possessors of a large vocabulary, whose basis is the few familiar words which they have studied. Every type word will stand for a list of words similar in form.

This study of sounds should continue through at least the first five school years. After analyzing any word into its separate sounds, the children should be required to name other known words which resemble the one studied. This will tend to a habit of classification, and will enable the pupil to depend upon himself in his study.

Diacritical marks are a help in mastering new words, if the key words have been studied in connection with the marks. They are needed also in consulting the dictionary for pronunciation. They should be taught only when necessary to the pronunciation. In older classes, after the use of the dictionary becomes necessary, a complete list should be mastered. It is a mistake to insist upon diacritical marking when the children can pronounce accurately without. I remember hearing a teacher chide a pupil for reading a sentence before she had time to mark the vowels, but, since the child could and did read without such help, the marking was evidently unnecessary. It serves as a means to an end, and should be dispensed with when the end can be reached without such artificial aid.