Evening star., 1938-09-09
Reading Most
Important
Subject
Teaching of First
Grade Scholars
Up to Experts.
Bv ANGELO PATRT.

At THE beginning Of each school
= term We get ANXIOUS queries from
mothers of first graders. Why does
the teacher not teach the children
their A B Cs? The little one is learn
ing words in sentences and does not
know the word by itself He reads
whole pages. but that Is from memory
only. He can't read new words or even
old ones if they are not in the order
OF the story"
Wait little while and he viii be
able to recognize the words he knows
in any context. And soon after that he
will be using phonetic elements TO help
will learn his alphabet. BY that time
he will have mastered the sounds Of
all the letters, will be able to apply
them fairly we'll in the reading of new
material.
The teacher tells the class q story,
exactly as it stands in the reader.
From the story she takes one sentence,
prints it on the board. reads it, then
lets the children read it. as a sentence.
not in individual words. When they
can do that she picks out distinctive
word. prints that by itself, says 1t
aloud. has the children say 1t. When
they know it pretty well she takes OF
its first letter, a consonant, sounds 1t,
lets the class sound it, name the letter
and sound it again and relate it to The
word from which it was taken. Nov
she prints it on a card and lays 1t aside
for tomorrow. Tomorrow's lesson re-
peats this one, adds another word.
another sound, and so on until, by and
by, the child has vocabulary, has
knowledge of the sounds of vowels and
consonants and can use them tnde-
pendently Now he reads from his
reader these familiar stories. He will
read them first by memory. from the
context, but the teacher will arrange
to use these words in fresh story, and
he will read under his own power. 1t
usually takes from one year to l8
months in elementary school to ac-
complish this miracle.
Reading is the most important SUBJ
ject for child to master. If he learns
to read, in the highest sense Of read
ing, he has an open door to an edu-
cation he needs or desires. Too often
the children only learn to read words.
They call the words accurately, but
they have little or no meaning for
them. This IS easily discovered. Let
the child read story, or an interesting
paragraph, shut the book. wait cou-
pie of minutes and tell what it was
he read. If he tells clear story, with
out clinging tightly to memorized
texts, he IS reading If he tries to re-
cite the text, he is not reading, he Is
calling words.
This is one of the most critical
stages of a childs learning. II he Is
not taught in the early years Of the
elementary course to read for mean
ing, he is going to be handicapped the
rest Of the way. If he learns to read
intelligently at the start, he has a big
hold on success in the upper courses
Of his schooling.
Reading in the first year and the
second year should be taught by ex-
perts in the education of little chill
dren. It is grave mistake to assign
the beginners to beginning teachers
Only experts. Of experience and proven
ability, should do this work, and they
ought to be paid in accordance with
the experts. the valuable educators
that they are.
lcopyrisht. 1889