Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1918-07-26
Continued From Capital of July 24)

An efficient teacher can teach chill
dren to read with poor material, an
inefficient teacher may fail with the
| best material, but no teacher, good.
bad or Indifferent, can awaken a de-
sire to read, develop love of reading
and open TO children the worlds
storehouse of literature without ma
terial that of itself is worth while,
that meets the child's instructive in
terest and tastes, that cultivates these
| and awakens in him new and missing
| interests and tastes.
Poor reading texts offer no inspira-
ton for teaching reading, so the work
becomes a mere hearing the class call
words.
Teaching reading involves interpre-
| tation of the printed symbols for the
| thought and meaning behind them, liv-
| ing the story or poem or song through
! playing it, telling it so others will see
and feel it, comparing it with ones
own experiences and thus making il a
! permanent possession.
The first step in teaching a reading
| lesson is to get the class to want TO
read, to look forward to this period
with joy and anticipation. The next
step is TO find out who and what are
in the story, why they are there, what
each says and does. Through ques-
tons and suggestions the child finds
| these things or himself-not at his
seat, but in class with his teacher and
classmates. He interprets the new
words through the meaning of the
sentences. In the case of proper
names or unusual words, the teacher
tells the word outright. The purposes
of this is to approach each lesson
from the thought side, to stress the
meaning back of the words, and to
lead children to regard reading as
a thought getting and not mere word
calling process.
That isn't all-words must be learn
ed. else the child will have on ability
to work independently. Every read
ing lesson must be followed by drill
on phrases and words. The former
| leads the child to recognize words in
groups and results in smooth, easy
reading. The latter fixes word
forms in mind that they are recogniz-
ed wherever seen. These drills are
given in different ways so the class
will use the same phrases and words
in different situations. Sometimes the
drill will take the form of sentences
forming a connected thought or story
on the blackboard, again it will be
given in the form of game, another
time flash cards will be used for rapid
recognition.
When the child has acquired some
reading ability and has built up a
reading vocabulary, words are sepa-
rated into sounds. This phonic drill
| trains the ear to sensitiveness to
sound and so helps in spelling and
recognizing some new words. Our
unphonetic language limits this help
materially.
The observation made in class
rooms and at teachers meetings shows
that one of these causes is lack of
| daily preparation on the part of
| teachers. Teaching, like tea, to be
most effecting and appetizing must be
freshly prepared. 1t is not sufficient
that the days material has been
taught before. To insure a live. in
| teresting, lasting lesson, it must be
prepared for the particular children
in this particular class using their in
| terests and experiences to make the
lesson both vivid and of value
The present war is the most vital
| interest of today Children in remote
districts know something of modern
know more. Herein lies the school
opportunity to make history part, of
the child's daily life The ideals OF
liberty, freedom, justice and honor
that have characterized the American
people are the ideals at stake today.
In one school, the Declaration of In
dependence and the Presidents adj
dress to Congress were studied to-
gether. The class, composed largely
| of foreigners, showed keen judgment
in comparisons of the characteristics
| of the two speeches, the purposes and
| ideal behind them and the conditions
that necessitated their declaration.
The results indicated clearly the
| teachers purpose, viz, to help these
children understand and appreciate
the "Unalienable rights of life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness" They
know more history because of those
lessons, but, far more important, be-
lieve they are better citizens for hav-
ing studied and discussed together
those two Incompatible expressions of
the ideals and spirit of our American
people.
A fifth grade become interested in
the coal situation and made an in
tensive study of coal fields, mining.
transportation, uses and prices OF
coal. The class searched newspapers.
books and magazines for information.
They visited coal dealers and wrote to
wholesale companies to learn every
thing they could on the subject The
result is vast amount of information
on the subject and a marked ability
to discuss it readily and well. The
teacher did little of the actual work,
/ 1,,,4