~Elementary Reading & More~
It seems only natural that the majority of attention within the scope of actual lessons has been devoted to reading and other subjects pertaining to the written word. Giving our children the gift of proficient reading skills ought to be our highest aim in educating them since it is through the written word that the Lord has chosen to reveal Himself to us.
I would however like to close out this subject and move on to other types of lessons soon and so this post will cover the remainder of the striking and helpful quotes I've gleaned on the topic from Home Education
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{Our Goal}
The child who has been taught to read with care and deliberation until he has mastered the words of a limited vocabulary, usually does the rest for himself. The attention of his teachers should be fixed on two points- that he acquires the habit of reading, and that he does not fall into slipshod habits of reading...
This habit should be begun early; so soon as the child can read at all, he should read for himself, and to himself, history, legends, fairy tales, and other suitable matter. He should be trained from the first to think that one reading of any lesson is enough to enable him to narrate what he has read, and will thus get the habit of slow, careful reading, intelligent even when it is silent, because he reads with an eye to the full meaning of every clause...
A child has not begun his education until he has acquired the habit of reading to himself, with interest and pleasure, books fully on a level with his intelligence. Lesson-books, which are all too apt to be written in a style of insufferable twaddle... should offer matter for their reading, whether aloud or to themselves; therefore should be written with literary power... The selection of their first lesson-books is a matter of grave importance, because it rests with these to give children the idea that knowledge is supremely attractive and that reading is delightful. Once the habit of reading his lesson-books with delight is set up in a child, his education is- not completed, but- ensured.
{Reading Aloud}
He should have practice, too, in reading aloud... A beautiful word deserves to be beautifully said...
The child must express what he feels to be the author's meaning; and this sort of intelligent reading comes only of the habit of reading with understanding...
It is a delight to older people to read aloud to children, but this should be only an occasional treat and indulgence, allowed before bedtime, for example... Give him the habit of being read to, and he will steadily shirk the labor of reading for himself...Include a good deal of poetry...
A knowledge of meanings, that is, an ample and correct vocabulary, is only arrived at in one way- by the habit of reading. A child unconsciously gets the meaning of a new word from the context, if not the first time he meets with it, then the second or the third.
{Narration}
Direct questions... are always a mistake. Let him narrate what he has read, or some part of it.... Questions that lead to a side issue or to a personal view are allowable because these interest children- ' What would you have done in his place?'...
Narrating is an art, like poetry-making or painting, because it is there, in every child's mind, waiting to be discovered and is not the result of any process of disciplinary education...
Until he is six... narrate only when and what he has a mind to.... When the child is six, let him narrate the tale which has been read to him; the Bible tale read to him in the words of the Bible; the well-written animal story...
The seven years old boy will have begun to read for himself, but must get most of his intellectual nutriment, by ear, certainly, but read to him out of books. He should have no book which is not a child's classic; it must not be diluted with talk or broken up with questions, but given to the boy in fit portions as wholesome meat for his mind, in the full trust that a child's mind is able to deal with it's proper food...
The child of eight or nine, is able to tackle the more serious material of knowledge; but our business for the moment is with what the children under nine can narrate.
{Method of Lesson}
In every case the reading should be consecutive from a well chose book. Before the reading for the day begins, the teacher should talk a little (and get the children to talk) about the last lesson, with a few words about what is to be read in order that the children may be animated by expectation; but she should beware of explanation, and, especially, of forestalling the narrative. Then, she may read two or three pages, enough to include an episode; after that, let her call upon the children to narrate, - in turns, if there be several of the them. They not only narrate with spirit and accuracy, but succeed in catching the style of their author. It is not wise to tease them with corrections; they may begin with an endless chain of 'ands,' but they soon leave this off, and their narrations become good enough in style and composition to be put in a 'print book'...
This sort of narration lesson should not occupy more than a quarter of an hour...
The book should always be deeply interesting, and when the narration is over, there should be a little talk in which moral points are brought out, pictures shown to illustrate the lesson, or diagrams drawn on the blackboard. As soon as children are able to read with ease and fluency, they read their own lesson, either aloud or silently, with a view to narration; but where it is necessary to make omissions, it is better that the teacher should always read the lesson which is to be narrated.
{Writing}
Let the child accomplish something perfectly in every lesson...
Let the writing lesson be short... no more than 5-10 minutes...
The thing to be avoided is the habit of careless work...
Printing before he begins to write...
Let the stroke be learned first; then the pothook; then the letters of which the pothook is an element- n, m, v, w, r, h, p, y; then o, and letters of which the curve is an element- a, c, g, e, x, s, q; then looped and irregular letter- b, l, f, t, etc. One letter should be perfectly formed in a day and the next day the same elemental forms repeated in another letter, until they become familiar. By and by copies, three or four of the letters they have learned grouped into a word- 'man,' 'aunt'; the lesson to be the production of the written word once without a single fault in any letter. At this stage the chalk and blackboard are better than pen and paper, as it is well that the child should rub out and rub out until his own eye is satisfied with the word or letter he has written...
Of the further stages, little need be said. Secure that the child begins by making perfect letters and is never allowed to make faulty ones, and the rest he will do for himself; as for 'a good hand,' do not hurry him; his 'handwriting' will come by-and-by, out of the character that is in him; but, as a child, he cannot be said, strictly speaking, to have character. Set good copies before him, and see that he imitates his model dutifully: the writing lesson being, not so many lines, or 'a copy'- that is, a page of writing- but a single line which is as exactly as possible a copy of the characters set. The child may have to write several lines before he succeeds in producing this.
{Spelling & Dictation}
People are slow to understand that there is no part of a child's work at school which some philosophic principle does not underlie...
The gift of spelling depends upon the power the eye possesses to 'take' (in a photographic sense) a detailed picture of a word; and this is a power and habit which must be cultivated in children from the first...
Once the eye sees a misspelt word, that image remains; and if there is also the image of the word rightly spelt, we are perplexed as to which is which...
The teacher's business to prevent false spelling, and, if an error has been made, to hide it away, as it were, so that the impression may not become fixed...
The child prepares by himself, by looking at the word he is not sure of, and then seeing it with his eyes shut. Before he begins, the teacher asks what words he thinks will need his attention. He generally knows, but the teacher may point out any word likely to be a cause of stumbling. He lets his teacher know when he is ready. The teacher asks if there are any words he is not sure of. These she puts, one by one, on the blackboard, letting the child look till he has a picture, and then rubbing the word out. If anyone is still doubtful he should be called to put the word he is not sure of on the board, the teacher watching to rub out the word when a wrong letter begins to appear, and again helping the child to get a mental picture. Then the teacher gives out the dictation, clause by clause, each clause repeated once. She dictates with a view to the pointing, which the children are expected to put in as they write; but they must not be told 'comma,' 'semicolon,' etc. After the sort of preparation I have described, which takes ten minutes or less, there is rarely an error in spelling...
Good spelling, which is- much reading combined with the habit of imaging the words as they are read...
Illiterate spelling is usually a sign of sparse reading; but, sometimes, of hasty reading without the habit of seeing the words that are skimmed over.
{Composition}
If a child is asked to generalize, that is, to write an essay upon some abstract theme, a double wrong is done him. He is brought up before a stone wall by being asked to do what is impossible to him, and that is discouraging. But a worse moral injury happens to him in that, having no thought of his own to offer on the subject, he puts together such tags of commonplace thought as have come in his way and offers the whole as his 'composition,' an effort which puts a strain upon his conscience while it piques his vanity...
For children under nine, the question of composition resolves itself into that of narration, varied by some such simple exercise as to write a part and narrate a part, or write the whole account of a walk they have taken, a lesson they have studied, or of some simple matter that they know. Before they are ten, children who have been in the habit of using books will write good, vigorous English with ease and freedom; that is, if they have not been hampered by instructions. It is well for them not even to learn rules for the placing of full stops and capitals until they notice how these things occur in their books...
They should narrate in the first place and they will compose, later, readily enough, but they should not be taught 'composition.'
{Transcription}
An introduction to spelling... Children should be encouraged to look at the word, see a picture of it with their eyes shut, and then write from memory. (Letting the child choose a favorite verse from a poem not a whole poem which is too long)
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