The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1890-12-06
Teaching Reading.
Written for the Democratic Advocate.
BY CHAS. T. WRIGHT.

There are many things which, like wine,
lose none of their strength by age, and the
proverb ''Train up a child in the way he
should go" has even after constant use and
the lapse of centuries lost none of its apt
ness as applied to the education Of our
modern-day children. 1t is applicable to
all branches or lines of training but doubly
so, we think, to the art of reading. Here
there is danger not only that the child will be
allowed to go wrong by neglect, but that
he will be sent wrong by instruction.
Just at the time when the child receives
its first lessons in reading from the hands,
or rather the voice of the teacher, its vocal
organs are susceptible of any impressions
that may be made upon them. They are
in that plant formative state which places
them at the mercy of the instructor As
an evidence of this note the utter impossi-
bility of concealng what is commonly
termed "accent' If the child in Germany
learns to speak its native tongue before
coming to this country, twenty-five years
of practice in English will fail to obliterate
the peculiar information acquired during the
first seven or eight years of its life, or, in
other words, people of one nation easily
detect the foreign accent of all Others
The vocal organs of child are capable
of correct expression. Let those who ques-
ton this notice the emphasis, infection and
and even the more delicate modulations of
boys and girls of FIVE and six as they con-
verse and give utterance to their own
thoughts. How unerring the slides, force,
pitch, and all those transitions necessary to
convey joy, grief, anger, secresy-any emo
ton or passion that moves the mind Of the
little speaker. Follow these same children
to school, watch them as they stand in
line, books in hand, to take the reading
lesson;" suddenly, as if by some magical
influence, the voice loses all its soft, fex-
ible sweetness of information, and takes on
stiff, monotonOus tone, low and mumbling,
high and shrll as inclination prompts no
childlike earnestness, no natural, eager
questioning, no tremor of injured feelings,
no sigh of childish longing or disappoint-
mcnt, no gesture Of impatience, no flash or
stamp of fiery Indignation, but tame, life
less, sing-song, nasal drawl, rasping treble
everything but that unconscious, invol-
untary grace that belongs to the same cEid-
ren on the playground. on The -.=.laset or
. =. conversation. What Is the secret of the
transformation, this change from graceful
ness to awkwardness? Just here let me
say that the term unconscious as used
above, leads us to at least partial solution
of the mystery The child, when in CON
versation, is unconscious of itself-that is,
it does not think of it itself, but of what it
wishes to convey to the minds of others;
but, when in school, the language it finds
in the book is not its own, therefore in its
uttcrance of that language it becomes aware
that it is making an effort to speak, or
rather is trying to tread, and because of
this effort the style is labored and awkward.
The nature of the disease suggests to the
physician the remedy to be applied, and
here the toilsome progress of the child
should suggest at least partial remedy for
the lack Of correct expression in the effort
to read; but the discussion of this we will
reserve for another paper.