(FIVE BOOK EDITION.) FIRST THE READER. BY WILLIAM T. HARRIS, A. M., LL. D., U.S. COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION, WASHINGTON, D. C. ANDREW J. RICKOFF, A. M., SUPERINTENDENT OF INSTRUCTION, CLEVELAND, OHIO. MARK BAILEY, A. M., INSTRUCTOR IN ELOCUTION, YALE COLLEGE. NEW YORK .:. CINCINNATI .:. CHICAGO: HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY GIFT OF GINN & CO. DEC 11 1930 Copyright, 1877 and 1878, BY D. APPLETON & COMPANY. COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY. FROM THE AUTHORS TO THE TEACHER. THE teacher using this book can teach by any method which he may prefer; but the experience of many years has convinced us that a judicious combination of the word and phonic methods is the best. It makes the shortest step from the known to the unknown; it makes the pupil independent of the aid of the teacher sooner than any other. This is the way we would use the book: We would teach the pupil to recognize the word "cat," and successively "a," "the," and "my," with the word "cat" and separately. We would do the same with the words to be found on the two succeeding pages. So far we would teach exclusively by what is called the "word method." While this is going on, we would be preparing the children for the next step. This may be done as follows: At the close of each lesson, without reference to book or blackboard, we would pronounce the words of the lesson, and other words, slowly and more slowly, till they were resolved into their elementary sounds. We would also exercise the children in doing the same. After three or four exercises of this kind we would pronounce the elements of familiar words very slowly, and have the children tell the words. In doing this, at first, the elements should not be entirely separated, but each should be made to glide into the next, the words being thus drawled out rather than distinctly separated into their elementary sounds. The object of this process, at this stage, is not to train the children to analyze and form words, but it is to lead them to notice the fact that the words which they use are composed of one or more different sounds, and that, by joining sounds together, they may make up words. On page 8 the children begin, for the first time, to associate the letters of the printed word with the sounds of the spoken word. Here we symbolize the analysis of the word "ran "as we hear it spoken, by printing the letters which represent the elements farther and farther apart, till each one stands as a separate unit. So with the reverse or synthetic process. On the opposite page the same process is applied to other words. With the use of the blackboard the ingenious teacher can carry |