The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1908-04-09
EDUCATIONAL,
A paper read at the teachers meeting
at Kiel, March 1908 by Miss Margaret
Riordon of Sheboygan.
BY w. E. LARSON.
SOME WORK IN PHONICS.

| OF Sn6D0yRdn county AT an institute
held at Plymouth under the supervision
of Mr. Kennedy had the pleasure of
hearing Mrs. Mary D. Bradford and no
person has ever heard Mrs Bradford
without loftier ideal of what it is to
be teacher.
Her work dealt with reading in all
grades including High School. | have
followed some of her suggestions in
phonics in relation to reading with the
help of that part of the Manual of which
she is the author.
I begin with the phonic work distinct
from the reading in the first grade.
would not teach child who had not
reached his or her sixth year unless. the
child if younger, could do the work
readily.
In order TO become good teachers we
must teach we'll and the best we can do
is to take the pupil by the hand and feel
the way with him not merely for him
Do not be a guide post but a guide.
| Children in Froebels conception were
as tender plants to be carefully and low
ingly trained and the teacher was ~
workman in that human garden.
Teach what you teach so we'll that
whatever is learned by the pupil is so
thoroughly learned that the next and
higher step will be comparatively easy.
The teacher must keep preparing
drills. Dr. Arnold when asked why he
kept preparing lessons which he had
taught for years said that he wished his
children to drink from running stream
not from stagnant pool
Carefully prepare the lessons for the
little people; give them daily drill. To
do this means more work for the teach
er while she is doing it but less the
work and worry afterwards, rs new
words will be added to the chid's vo.
cabulary rapidly and naturally and in
the end no one reaps so large a compen.
sation az the teacher herself.
1t is estimated the child entering
school has speaking vocabulary of
from six to eight hundred words and a
hearing vocabulary of four or five times
as many. This does not apply to the
foreign speaking child; ! will speak of
him later,)
Primary teachers advocate that the
teaching of phonics should not begin
until the child has mastered twenty.
five sentences from sentence cards and
the blackboard.
Tbegan teaching the Consonant sounds
first by using the story in the New Ed.
ucational Reader" and later used charts,
cards and the blackboard for drills. On
the charts used the consonants in the
order given by theM !: nal on page TWEEN
twenty seven In making my charts |
used roll of plain wall paper. This
amount of paper will make three charts,
the cost of each will be the small sum
of five cents. We usually need all the
blackboard room in our schools and
there is the advantage of preserving the
paper charts for future reference. |
placed the paper lengthw,se upon the
wall and ruled it into rectangles, eley-
en- the width of the paper and twenty.
| four the length. In the first row of
rectangles in the width of the paper, be
| ginning with the second rectangle write
| the phOnograms an at, en-, eft, in, II,
un, ut, on and OF. Then across the top
of the chart beginning with the second
rectangle place the consonants in the
order given in the Manual.
We are now ready for word, building
and across the length of the chart we
get word families and in the width we
get initial families,
The Manual selects the above men
toned phonograms because of their ease
in pronunciation and five of them an,
at, in, it and on are words. These
words are words that have been includ
ed in the sentence, hence words he al
ready knows.
This chart when completed contains
ninety words and Mrs. Bradford advo-
Gated the teaching of nonsense words
which will help later to build other
words.
Five word phonograms and, ate, ant,
end and ink are valuable and which
| should have been mastered in sentences
previously taught
Then teach that adding ''e' to certain
words on chart one makes the letter "a
say its own name as, can, cane. The
same is true of e. ], o and u
Keep teaching new phonograms un.
til the chart has given all the service
possible and begin second chart using
the next important fundamental phono.
grams.
Fol words that cannot be taught
phonetically place them on a sheet of
paper and hang on the wall, where the
pupils can always refer to them. There
are but six words put, wan, gin, son,
ton and won on the original chart which
cannot be taught phonetically
Ia this work much depends on the in
ingenuity and inventive power of the
teacher
Reciting individually is the better
way. Concert recitation is of little val.
ne The main purpose in the recitation
=. - ,l,. ! MT IN l..
! The pupils confidence in himself and his
teacher is the atmosphere that must pre-
vail in the recitation if SUCCESS is to be
attained
Phonics are the mechanics of reading,
sound study, hence word mastery
They are the Instrument of self help
and necessitate the training of the eve
the ear and the vocal organs. Bring
pupils to realization that words are
made up of sounds, then train them TO
detect these sounds NJ heard they will
then see the written word stands for
sounds and they have n desire to know
| these sounds to master words
The time needed for this will of course
vary with the maturity and general ab
| ility of the pupil : ~ progress il more or
less effectual among different pupils.
He should be taught to work ont
rapidly pronunciation Of new words u
process easily learned if daily drill il
| given.
Just as the use of the dictionary il
taught to fourth grade pupils for self
help. phonics should be taught to pri
mary children, aud to higher grades
who have been neglected in their early
training
Many teachers raise the impossibili.
| fiau Of tho apao ,I,ll D.