Reading: How to Teach It

by Sarah Louise Arnold

From the beginning, the children should be shown that every sentence is an embodiment of a thought, every word having its place in the expression of that thought.

“A saucy robin is eating the ripe cherries in the tree under my window,” the children read. The teacher studies with them for a moment. What does the sentence tell them? Who is eating the ripe cherries? What kind of robin? What is he doing? What is he eating? What cherries is he eating? Where is the tree? What word tells us what kind of a robin is eating? What words tell where the cherries are? What word tells who is eating the cherries? Even in primary schools such questioning is valuable, leading the children to realize that the words appear in the sentence, not by chance, but in order to express something; that every word has its work, that not one can be omitted, that a change in a single word changes the thought. Such exercises, thoughtfully conducted, will lead the children to look for the thought in the sentence, and will make its mastery a test of their success. If the sentence does not yield them a thought which they understand, let them question every word until they get its meaning. Thus they learn to recognize the line where their knowledge ends and their ignorance begins.

It is often the case, however, that the difficulty to be overcome is the pupils’ inability to pronounce words whose meaning may be familiar. If this is the case, they will need to bring all their knowledge of words to bear upon this new problem. “Sidewalk” is a long word, a new word—no one knows it. The teacher helps, not by pronouncing it and easing the children of their load. No. She says: “That word seems long, but it is very easy. You know the first syllable.” Yes, everybody knows “side.” “Now, who knows the second? Who can put them together?” The children rejoice in the sense of overcoming. They have gained some power to help themselves. Our teaching should compel as well as invite such thoughtful comparison of the old with the new, should lead the children to use what they have learned, in the mastery of the not learned.

The simplest lessons in preparatory study are thus justified: they lead to a conscious judgment of one’s attainment. Study means nothing if it does not lead to this judgment. The power once gained, the pupil is his own best teacher, his own strongest helper. Prize, then, all exercises which lead to this judgment. Instead of saying to the untrained pupil, “Read your lesson ten times,” when his present attainment or lack of attainment renders such repetition worse than useless, you will say, “Read the lesson and copy all the words whose meaning you do not know.” “Read and copy the words that you cannot pronounce.” “Read and copy the sentence that you do not understand.” “Read so carefully that you are sure you can read well to the class.”

The skilful teacher will think of a hundred devices to advance such study. The test of each device will be, “Does it help to arouse thought? Does it end in thoughtful study?”

Such study is necessary before reading whenever we may assume that the lesson presents any difficulty to the child, unless we prefer that the first oral rendering of the lesson shall be merely a studying aloud.

As a stimulus to, or a test of, study, it may be well to omit the oral reading occasionally, substituting for it an exercise in silent reading, whose thoroughness is tested by questions. After the usual study of the lesson the books are closed and the teacher calls upon the pupils to tell her what they have read. Older pupils may respond by giving the substance of the lesson. Younger children may be tested by more frequent and detailed questions after the reading of short paragraphs.

The above exercise is even more helpful if the children share in the questioning. They read with keener interest if their knowledge is thus put to the test.

Such exercises tend to emphasize to the pupils the truth that their reading is not for itself, but to make them masters of the thoughts expressed in their lessons. It becomes more real, more purposeful, in proportion as this is realized.

In this connection, it may be said that anything which adds purpose to the reading lesson gives motive to study. When pupils are asked to read to the class some selection unknown to the other pupils, they study and read with a zest quite unlike that manifested in the repetition of a worn-out selection which the others already know. For some good end, recognized by himself as worthy, the child reads now. The introduction of opportunities for individual reading, as early as may be, thus proves an incentive to study and a means of rapid advancement. Cuttings from papers and magazines and collections of children’s books prove most helpful at this stage, affording a prize for attainment, as well as an evident test of progress.