The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1890-11-06
TEACHING READING IN A COUNTRY
SCHOOL,

To teach child to read is to teach
him to get thought by means of the
printed words. He gets thought in sev-
eral ways-in the language way he gets
thought by seeing words arranged prop
erly one after another; then if he utters
these words he is expressing the thought
he has gained, but bear in mind that be
must get thought; in other words, that
reading is thinking process-not q me-
chanical one.
Select an object as hat; place it be-
fore the child. Put it on your head, put
it on his head; he begins to be inter
ested. "What is it?" You write the
word he gives, chat" "That is the word
hat" "What is this?" pointing to
the word.) The idea is grasped that the
word represents the thing-a grand dis
covery whether made by the individual
or the race.
You bring up boy, named John.
"Who is this ?" He answers and. you
write John" You give John the hat.
"What was John ?" sTell me what John
has ?" You write "John has the hat"
and read it. "You may read it." Now
ell this writing is to be in script, not in
print, remember. You may now take
out ball, and use it in the same way.
In the course of time you will come to
the thought that "John has the ball"
Now your fault will be to go too fast
You will want to do the thinking. Let
me beg Of you to go slow, to make the
child do the thinking. In fact you can
not teach him toread unless you let him
think.
Shsll you teach the alphabet? No,
no, no, you stop his thinking by doing
that. Shall he spell his words? No,
no, no. That stops his thinking too.
Well, you have used the objects shat"
and "ball." You can now chow pictures
of q hat aud ball. You can talk about
them and the child will get the same
idea from picture of q hat as from the
hat itself Now you will use some other
objects in the same wsy-no book being
in the hands of teacher or pupil. A
start has been made in getting the child
to think and to express his thought.
You take up book and you start him
off in the use of it slowly. You write,
81 aee the cat" for example, and repeat
it. You point to if, "What does it say p
You question and talk. Then you show
him the sentence II gee the cat" in his
book and read it. He will grasp the
idea.
You write, ri see the hat" and after
it is comprehended-tnat is, when he
"gets the thought" you turn to the book.
And so you 60 on until he has learned to
read-some words. He will soon learn a
stock of words, say 40; and if you can
write these on cards, do 80; if you can
buy them printed on cards, do 40. Let
him set them up at his desk, as "The cat
has rat, II see the cal" and 80 on.
After the ground is solid under his
feet as to a knowledge of words, you can
begin to give him knowledge of the
sounds of the letters. Take "cat," for
example. You point to and give the
sound of 4, then to giving it's sound,
then to giving its sound. He will
watch you and wonder; you do it again
slowly. "Try it." He tries and you
smile. You take up frat" in the same
way, and when he has given the sound
as best be can you leave him to think it
out. A chart is a great help, and you
should hsve one: but you can do with.
out one One thing you cannot do with.
out and that is a right use of right
method. You must study the child and
learn how he learns. Do you own "Par-
ker's Talks Oh Teaching ?"-7sochers'
Institute.