River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1883-05-17
Prot. swirtoa on Teaching p,ima,gesaaiag.

Prot. Swinton on Teaching PyimaygReading.
eThe more successful yoi are in
teaching primary reading, the less
of any so-called method Children
have been taught to read by every
method and by no method land it
would puzzle the wisest to tel exactly
how child does learn to read our
anomalous mother tongue.
"Ihe three recognized sjstems of
teaching the first steps in reading are
the Atphabetic, the Phonic and the
Word systems. The first twp are ana
lytic,-the Alphabetic teaching the
letters as parts of printed words, and
the PhOnic teaching the iopnds as
parts of spoken words; the third is
synthetic, teaching the word as a
whole. Each of these hasits value,
and each its limitations.
s'As to the old abe device, it is
now generally conceded that it is a
mistake to begin by teachingthe COM
plete alphabet. 1t does not teach to
read, since the names of the letters
furnish only slight clew to the
sounds of a given word. tits plain,
for example, that bee-dre-d-you-jee
digh-ted affords the child bW meager
aid in making out the mystery of the
word brought.
1T is u work of supeRrogation,
however, to decry the alph.betic sys-
tenn, since it's doom is Ong since
spoken; and indeed the onll danger is
that, in the revolt from the abuses of
that system, we may iorgetthat there
is such thing as the alphabet, and
| that the child should be put in pos
session of it as soon rs may be without
| sacrifice. Under the guidance of a
wise teacher, the alphabet presents
none of its tradition telrors; it is
taught incidentally and inse9sibly.
1.-THE reaction from the t-b-c' plan
resulted in the SO called wOra-method.
This is the .look-and-say' principle, by
which the word in its entirety land
without reference TO its component
elements as addressed either to eye or
earl is taught AS the sign of an idea.
| This is undoubtedly an admirable mode
of imparting TO the beginner not only
his first little stock of words, but also
| that considerable class of familiar
child-terms--as one, eye, said, aUhO,
kp0ao, etc.--that present picnic anom-
allies. But here its usefulness ends.
English is not Chinese, in which
each individual word is represented
by a synthetic SYMBOL las many SYM
bols as words. Underneath all its
anomalies and exceptions, oar English
alphabet is phonetic, and lis charac-
| tiers represent With more or less fideli-
= L.. Il -
spoken word. 1t would appeal rational,
therefore, that we should begin as
soon as possible to put the child in
possession of those phonic constants
and fruitful analogies that come to
view in our mother tongue. This will
the soonest enable him to help himself
to the knowledge of new worcs.
ION this sound principle the phonic
method proceeds. But just as We
have seen that by its devotees the
word system IS carried to point
where it ceases TO be valuable and
should give place to the phoais meth
cd, so, ON the other hand, the latter is
often brought into use too early a
stage where words should be learned
as words. without analysis of their
parts. 10 tMUdildcS lHC t5AO Will
the inGricacies of phonic markings is to
sacrifice practical utility to the one
sidedness of theory.
The fact is that learning to read a
language like ours. which has nota-
tion made up of fragments of the no
tations in use in the various languages
from which our composite English
speech is derived, requires great toll
and trouble. The child should have
all possible llelp-help from every de-
vice from every method And the
merit of any system of teaching pri-
mary reading must be judged lot by
its conformity wi Ii this or that
Theory, but by the Baeonian test of its
fruit.