Reading: How to Teach It

by Sarah Louise Arnold

There is much in the pages of the best literature which is already suited to children’s understanding. Let us choose that first. But we shall dare to add much which they do not fully understand as yet, knowing that the future will interpret to them that which is now hidden. It is a mistake to cut literature to the children’s comprehension. Let us trust that they will feel in some measure the beauty which they cannot understand, and that their future experience will unlock the door which is now shut to them.

The writer remembers a class of children—children who came from rude homes, whose lives were narrow and hindered, who, nevertheless, listened with intense interest to the poems which their teacher read to them. It happened that she once selected for the morning reading the first stanzas of Longfellow’s poem, “My Lost Youth.” They listened eagerly until the book was closed, giving evidence of appreciation with every return of the rhythmic refrain. “Is that all?” they asked. “No,” was the reply, “but you would not understand the rest.” “Oh, read it to us, even if we don’t,” they urged. “We love the sound of it.”

The writer has often heard primary classes reciting Wordsworth’s “Daffodils” with great delight. Without doubt the child’s interpretation differs from that of the man,—understanding is the fruit of experience,—but even thus early the children enter into the spirit of the poem, rejoice in the beauty of the daffodils, and are happy in the rhythmic recitation. The beautiful words are treasured in their memories, to return again and again to gladden their hearts, just as the bright vision was repeated in the experience of the poet.

Give to the children, then, not only the child thought which fits the childish experience, but also the treasure which grows in beauty as they grow, and becomes rich as they become wise.

It is well for the teacher to cultivate the art of telling stories to children. The story that is told has an element of life which is not found in the story that is read. There is no barrier between the story-teller and his audience; the book often makes a gulf between the reader and his hearers. Practise story-telling. Let the children’s indifference teach you wherein you fail; your unconscious tutors will show you what to omit and what to magnify. Their training will help you in other directions. If you yield yourself to the teaching of the children, you will be repaid by a new readiness in story-telling before less kindly and less candid critics. Do not forego this privilege.

It is well to read and re-read the poem or story until it becomes the child’s own possession. The term “Memory Gem” has been adopted into our familiar school phrases. Whether the phrase remains or not, it is to be hoped that the exercise which it names will always have a place. It has an advantage beyond simply reading or hearing the poem. The poem which has been committed to memory and recited again and again, becomes the child’s own. It will recur to him at his play, at his work, in school and out. No other thought treasure is so dear to us as that which is learned in childhood, and which accompanies us through life. Through such indirect teaching, we may remain an influence for good even when our names have been forgotten. By means of such tuition the child becomes familiar with the vocabulary of good literature, and is prepared to read, understand, and enjoy that which would otherwise have been beyond his reach. By all means continue the “memory gem,” but be assured that the selections are truly gems.

A poem or story may be presented to a child as a message from the author to him. Whittier’s “Barefoot Boy,” for example, serves not only to describe the barefoot boy, but to tell the children something about the poet himself. If they read it with this thought in mind, they will be desirous of learning something about the poet. This study of the author should not precede the study of the poem. They will care to learn about Whittier because he has written this charming poem for them; now, facts about his life will be filled with meaning; they will rejoice in the story of his boyhood experience, and will return to “The Barefoot Boy” with a keener interest, because it has become real to them through their study of the poet’s life. For little children (and is it not true of grown-up children as well?) this is the natural order of teaching. We care to know about Scott because we delight in “Marmion” and “Ivanhoe”; we do not first learn about the author, and then decide to read his works.

Other things being equal, our selections for reading and for memorizing should be from the world’s best writers. We should at least be sure that the children’s course of reading gives them some sense of companionship with a few men and women who have blessed the world through their books. Hans Christian Andersen, Alice and Phœbe Cary, Mary Howitt, Longfellow, Whittier, Lowell, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Eugene Field have written some of their best thoughts for children as well as for men and women. Some of these names should stand for real personalities, nay, for friends, to the children, before they leave school.

One question is often asked by teachers: “Shall I give myths to the children, and how? and can I give them if I do not believe them nor like them at all myself?” Somewhere, sometime, somehow, the children should become familiar with the classic myths. The “sometime” should be in childhood, or the myths will never fulfil their true mission. They should come at the time when children delight in the marvellous, the fanciful, the grotesque. Rightly used, they help to develop the imagination, a power which is left sadly to itself in school life. They serve as a basis for future reading. A knowledge of them is necessary to the interpretation of the best in literature. By all means give them to the children, but give them in their best form. They should not be mutilated by any attempt to embody them in words of one syllable. Let the child’s reading of the myths wait until he is able to read some version couched in the purest English. Meanwhile, read them to him again and again, sometimes without note or comment, for explanations are often bungling attempts to explain that which can never be explained. Let the child absorb into himself what the story conveys to him. Answer his questions plainly, if you can. Tell him you do not know, if you do not; but do not spoil his visions by attempting to teach vaporized theories.