Reading: How to Teach It

by Sarah Louise Arnold

The order being thus made clear, a double practice should be given, to fix it in his mind: first, finding chosen words in the dictionary in the quickest possible time; second, making lists of words in alphabetical order.

These lessons may seem superfluously simple and mechanical, but it is due to the omission of such teaching that so many hours are wasted in the blind search after the contents of books, and that so many dictionaries are fresh-edged, unused.

Thus far the pupil has simply found the way to his word. Now he must learn to read what the dictionary tells him about it. Here further knowledge is required.

He finds the word so divided and marked as to enable him to pronounce it correctly, if he knows enough. But first he must know how to pronounce the syllables into which it is divided, and to translate the marks used for his benefit. Syllabification and diacritical marks constitute the subject of the next series of lessons.

The first is not so minor a matter as it may seem at first sight. Proper division into syllables is necessary to proper pronunciation of syllables, and a correct naming of the consecutive syllables means correct pronunciation of the word. The children’s trick, which often confounds the scholar, proves this. “Pronounce ba-cka-che,” they demand, dictating the syllables as written. After sufficiently enjoying the scholar’s discomfiture, they pronounce the common word, backache. It is no more than fair to give him a taste of their daily vicissitudes. All teachers know how children are daily lost in the mazes of syllabification. It would be well to avert this evil, and lead to a more helpful reading of the dictionary, by giving lessons whose object is the mastery of syllables. Separating familiar words into their syllables and pronouncing by syllable at sight are excellent exercises, and they may well displace some of the formal and mechanical study of never-to-be-used lists of words.

Many words are mastered for all time as soon as the art of syllabification is learned. For others there remains, however, the need of the diacritical marks.

As teachers know (but as children seldom discover), those marks exist simply as aids to pronunciation. They vary, in different dictionaries. It is, therefore, necessary that children should study the key to pronunciation in the dictionary which they use. As an aid to their memories, an epitome of this key is printed at the bottom of every page, that he who runs may read. If the mark is not recognized, a glance shows them the value of the same marked vowel in a familiar word. The sound of the unfamiliar word is made plain to them if they have learned to read the dictionary. Drill in pronouncing columns of the words found in the dictionary, is an aid to the rapid acquirement of power to translate these equivalents, while, until this power is won, the pupil may be helped by marking familiar words in accordance with the key.

The mastery of the alphabetical arrangement and syllabification and pronunciation being assured, there remains the study of the grouped meanings and the derivation, with attention to grammatical use. As soon as the pupil knows the parts of speech, the various uses of words are made plain to him, and he intelligently follows the dictionary column which exhibits a word as noun, verb, adjective, or adverb. If his object is to discover the verb meaning, he passes the others. If the earlier and perhaps obsolete meanings do not apply, he reads on until the fitting definition is reached. If the definition itself is not plain to him, he “looks up” the unfamiliar words contained in it. But he keeps at work until he has made himself master of the word for whose meaning he sought. Quotations showing standard use are read and considered. The paragraph or sentence containing the new word is re-read, illumined by the new meaning.

Such a lesson has in it the virtue of a language lesson. The new word, with its precious cargo, has become the child’s possession, and he can send it voyaging to ports he desires to reach with his thought. Further, through such exercises, he learns to master books.

The more mature student will carefully con the root-meaning, and follow the word through its devious history. That work, in its detail, must wait for the higher grades and the college. But with such thoroughness as has been outlined, the grammar grade pupil may make the dictionary his strong ally and unfailing friend. It behooves us to teach him the art.