The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1895-02-22
METHODS OF PRIMARY READING.
The Peabody Method.
bY WILLIAM NOETLING.

bh William NUE. 1 LiNp'
This method published in 1873 by
Elizabeth Peabody and her sister, Mrs.
Horace Mann, begins with the So
called long vowel sounds.
AS her reason for beginning with
the long, or Roman vowel sounds,
Miss Peabody gives the following "If
we pronounce the vowel characters as
their Latin inventors did, and the Con-
tinental nations now generally do
namely: a, as in art, whether short or
long G, as in ebb, when short, and
when long, as in fete :: !, as in ink,
when short, and when long, as in
marine ). o, as in no and u, as in
the final of Peru (no yu); also the
letters C and q, hdrI-it will be found
fact, that the largest number of the
sY1Iubtes heard in English are phono.
graphic, and a very large number Of
whole words besides.
"It was suggested to me by DR..
Kratsir, that should take volume
of any book, and count the times that
each of the vowels, and and q, were
sounded as the Romans sounded them,
and how many times they were sound
ed otherwise, and thus see whether it
was (as he said) that these Roman
sounds were the most frequent, even
in the English language. l did SO on
the third chapter of Waverly, from the
beginning to the words, primary OBJ
jects of study and counted the mum.
Der of timss that the ambiguous let
tiers occur, and found that the letter q
occurs 244 times, and has the Italian
sound in every instance but 58 times !;
g OCCURS $40 times, and has the
Italian sound in every instance but IS;
u occurs 5S times, and only 20 times
as in the English alphabet. The C
occurs 81 times, and has the hard
sound except in 27 instances. The 9
occurs 81 times. and has the hard
sound in every instance but IL. The
y occurs IS times, and has the Italian
sound in every instance but 2. Indeed
l found q was hard, even before and
., in the case of every Saxon word ;
and that all the soft g'S, which a,e
not many, were derived from the Nor
man French.
In further explanation, Miss Pea
body says: 81 then set myself to find
what words in English there were,
written entirely with the Roman
sounding letters; and to my surprise,
found enough to fill primary spell
ing book, while most of the sylldbles
of the rest of the words in the language
yielded, on analysis, the same sounds.
1t Immediately occurred to me to be-
gin to teach children to read by these
words, whose analysis would always
yield them the Roman sounds and
reserve, till afterwards, the other words
(Which are exceptions to be learned by
rote, as now all words are).
I" In order to fix the Photographic
law perfectly, we first give some ele
mental syllables of two and three let
ters, which the children can probably
read off at sight, not spelling them :
and afterwards, some columns of
words, which can doubtless be read at
sight very soon. But, as it is bad to
read words without, at the same time,
recognizing their meaning, 1t is better
to make object lessons of each word,
thus Pronounce the word, and then
ask the children to make some SEN
tences with the word in it (Which is
altogether the best way of teaching
the definitions of words)."
| The following are some of the ele
mental syllables given the chi dren
after they have learned the sounds Of
all the letters-Roman sounds.
mi, me, ma, mo, mu, my.