The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1894-11-30
METHODS 0T PRIMARY
READING. |.
BY William Noetling.

eduCatlOn anu teaCnlng, IN speaking
of teaching the beginnings Of reading,
says: zone Of the first difficulties
with which we are confronted is the
fact that our language presents so
many photographed and phonetic
anomalies. In this respect it differs
notably from French, in which there
are comparatively few, from Germany
in which there are fewer, and from
Italian, in which there are scarcely
any. We all know thrt ours is com.
posite speech, conglomerate of many
languages: that portion of it which
was spoken before it was written
the purely English portion and the
earlier derivatives from Latin and
from Norman French-is full of
queer and caprlcious spelling One
of the first difficulties to be surmount-
ed is our anomalous alphabet. 1t
would be easy to show that it has
every fault that an alphabet can have.
A perfect alphabet should, it may
well be urged, have single and fixed
character for every single and indivis-
Bile elementary sound. 1t should have
such compound characters for com
posite or diphthongal sounds as would
iodicate clearly the elements of which
they are composed. 1t should also
have similar characters for analogous
or related sounds. Nothing is easier
than to lay down these conditions,
and to see that our alphabet violates
every one of than. 1t is at the same
time redundant and defective. 1t has
not enough characters, and those
which it has it does not make the best
Of"
Teachers of English must take the
language as they find it and discover
devices for bridging.over its anoma-
lies.
A number Of methods for teaching
the beginnings Of reading has from
time to time been devised, but all of
them may be divided into two classes,
arbitrary and philosophical, or syn.
thetic and analytic. The order in
which theyvwill be presentediin these
articles is as nearly as possible that in
which they were published
THE ALPHABEIIc. This ancient
method, of which DR. Stanley Hall
says, Just when or by whom the
school device Of telling off the indie
pendent names of letters as key to
the spoken word (or spelling) was hit
upon, is unknown. Of course, d o-g
really spells deogee, and not dog, any
more than delta, omicron, gamma,
does. Arbitrary in itself, spelling has
naturally associated itself with harsh
methods of teaching. An old poem
tells Of teacher and a pupil who un.
dertook to settle the spelling of
word by fight, in which the teacher
was killed and Greek comedian,
Kallias, wrote letter tragedy. Yet
the method had almost universal cur
rency, despite much opposition and
ridicule, down to the Reformation,
and in most non. Teutonic lands still
maintains its supremacy"
A leading English writer on
methods of teaching reading says of
lhC d DC ulCtuOu IL 10 lIuC ludt
the dulest teacher can build up every
word, regular or irregular, out OF
single letters, and teach children to
read, but at what an expense of wasted
time and intelligence Every word,
which should be learned by the eye
more than by the ear, is presented to
the ear by series of sounds, which
contradict the resulting sounds. The
greatest proof of child's faith in its
teacher is the touching confidence
with which it declares its belief that
double u.aitch-i see-aitch' spells witch,
or rather wi Ct } ch }"
More than thirty years ago, DIR. AL
fred Holbrook said, in Normal
Methods of Teaching, "The common
or alb method Of teaching the alpha
bet is as serious an obstacle as can
well be devised, in the way of the
child, 10 hinder his progress and rem
der instruction repulsive yet millions
have lived through 1t in spite of all
the horrors Of the passage. D." A.
ter the child has learned to call the
twenty six shapeless characters by
their meaningless names, he is worse
OIL than before, SO far as use is con
cerned, These names only mislead
him as to the true power of the letters,
and are constantly in his way in find
Ing out the sounds Of any of them in
any of their combinations.
Nearly fifty years ago, Horace
Mann, after visiting the schools of
Germany, said in his report to the
Massachusetts, Board of Education,
concerning the alphabetic method
III the child is bright, the time which
passes while he recites is the only part
OF the day when he does not think.
Not single faculty of the mind is
OCCUnlpH aNcant thot Of INIT attpo