Withdrawa 269766

TO THE TEACHER.

THE object of this little book is to furnish a series of easy supplementary reading lessons for the youngest children at school. As soon as the pupils are able readily to recognize five or six of the most commonly used words, these stories may be given to them to read. The words may be taught from the blackboard, from reading charts, or by any other method which the teacher finds to be best and most practicable. They should be chosen with reference both to their ready comprehension by the children. and to the order of their occurrence in the reading lessons. As the children progress in the ability to read, variety and interest will demand that the vocabulary should increase with greater rapidity; and soon, instead of presenting only three or four new words at a time, the teacher need feel no fear but that twice as many, and even more, will be readily learned.

The stories contained in this book have been written or selected with the intent to enlist the interest and sympathy of the child. The endeavor has been made to

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relieve them of the appearance of formal reading lessons, and to invest them with an attractiveness foreign to the "drill work" which so frequently discourages the child in his first efforts to master the printed page. These stories may be used as exercises in reading at sight; they may be read by the children at their seats and afterwards reproduced and talked about in the class; they may either supplement or take the place of lessons from other reading books; and they may be utilized in various other ways to aid the young learner in the acquirement of the difficult art of reading. But, in whatever manner they may be presented, it should always be borne in mind that their chief purpose is to add to the child's intellectual enjoyment, and, while introducing him early to some of the subjects of our best literature, incite him to a love of reading for the sake of the pleasure which is to be derived from it.

In the first twenty-five stories every new word, when it first occurs, is printed in bold-faced type. The pupil's attention is thus directed particularly to the new comer, and he will be better able to recognize it when it appears again. From the twenty-sixth story to the end of the book only such words as are likely to be especially difficult to young readers are thus printed in bold-faced letters.