THE EASY FIRST READER BY GEOFFREY BUCKWALTER SUPERVISING PRINCIPAL OF MT. VERNON SCHOOL, PHILADELPHIA 66 SUGGESTIONS TO THE TEACHER Reading. Many of the Suggestions given in the Easy Primer are just as applicable to pupils using the First or the Second Reader. Hear the children read in little class-groups of six to ten pupils. Be satisfied at first if they are interested, get the meaning of what is read, and read with fair expression. Make the lessons short and spirited. Don't make them a task. Don't attempt many things at a time. Making use of the board, have the phonetic drills separate from the reading lessons. If the lesson is long, the teacher may lead up to it by talking with the pupils about it before beginning to read. Encourage them to ask you to pronounce (and to re-repronounce) words for them before they begin to read aloud a line or a paragraph. We should not show impatience. We should not expect too much. We should bear in mind that all education is merely development. Spelling. The object at first should be not so much to teach Spelling as to show the child HOW TO SPELL and HOW TO PRONOUNCE, and to help him to recognize words quickly to recognize them at a glance. These results, in a measure, can best be attained, not by the pupils' laboriously memorizing a few unusual words, but by very simple phonetic drills, and by their spelling from the OPEN book and from the board, and copying correctly, and recopying, words with whose use they are familiar. Answers to the Riddles. - Page 69: 1. A well. 2. Smoke. 3. A boy on a stool, holding a leg of mutton, a dog, etc. 4. Some clouds and the new moon in the sky. Page 73: A newspaper. Page 104: 1. A clock. 2. A chair. A clock. Page 123: |