THE TEACHER'S MANUAL OF METHOD AND ORGANISATION. CHAPTER I. READING. Definition of good reading. Reading may be called good when it is easy, yet not flippant; clear and firm in tone, without show or affectation; definite and exact in enunciation, without a parade of distinctness; expressing at the same time the true meaning intended, and joining with this expression judgment and taste. Defects of reading. It unites expression with understanding; and, therefore, its chief defects must relate to the comprehension of the text, and to the tone and manner in which the sense is conveyed. Defects in tone and manner are indistinctness, hesita1 tion, affectation, monotony, unnatural pitch of voice, mal-pronunciations, &c. Of these, I intend to exclude pronunciation; for although a boy may pronounce badly, yet he may be able to collect easily and truly the statements of the author, and convey them clearly and forcibly to others; and these, as I take it, are the two most important elements of reading, and about the only ones we have a right to seek for in most of our primary schools, or that we are at all likely to attain. Errors of pronunciation. Many teachers look upon the correction of such errors occurring in the reading as the most important of their duties. In their extreme desire to secure purity of utterance, they overlook the child's comprehension of the text, and the force and correctness with which he makes himself understood. They appear, as the Rev. Mr. Grant describes them, 'to be lying in wait for provincialisms,' and by their 1 1 Min. of Council, 1860-1, p. 88. B captious manner, and their constant fault-finding, they worry and distract their children until they force them to commit, in their perplexity, errors which they otherwise might have escaped. Best place to attend to mal-pronunciations. Errors of pronunciation consist chiefly of provincialisms and local peculiarities, and can, therefore, be best checked in that conversational intercourse which always exists between the teacher and children during school hours. They are reducible, as Dr. Woodford remarks,1 to a few great heads, and therefore it is obvious that a short column of words and a few simple expressions might be selected to represent the whole, which, being carefully and repeatedly pronounced every morning, or as occasion may suggest, would serve for their correction. Defects in reading are almost universal. The defects which I do retain under the head of bad reading are, I regret to say, almost universally met with, notwithstanding the improvement that must have taken place within the last twenty years in the education of the people of Great Britain and Ireland. Inspectors and other educational authorities continually refer to them. The Rev. Mr. Cook says, 'The reading is hasty, monotonous, and unintelligible.' Mr. Moseley 'is not aware that in any school is attention given to just expression or correct emphasis.' 3 '3 Mr. Thurtell: 'It is in general extremely monotonous.'4 Mr. Alderson: 'I have found, in the course of my inspection, nothing more annoying than the indistinct mumbling which in many schools passes current for reading.'5 Mr. Brodie: 'By great courtesy only and forbearing allowance can that inaudible sound, which, because a pupil is standing with a book in his hands and his lips are doubtfully moving, you hope to hear, but might as easily hope to see, be called reading. Occasionally, but rarely, the other extreme prevails, and the whole class shrieks. Stops are disregarded, and the reader speedily sits down, or, if a female, droops into her place, with a serene indifference to the last words of the sentence, joyous anyhow to have rushed through the small portion of an ungenial task.' While in his report for the next year he adds, 'There is imperfect enunciation and articulation, slurring over of final letters and syllables, little attention to stops, unheeded emphasis, mumbling, inaudibility." Mr. Wilkinson, in the same year, corroborates this statement. He says, 'During the past year I have frequently had to complain of the inaudible mumbling, particularly among the lower classes of my schools, which frequently passes current for reading.' Again, in Ire 1 Min. of Council, 1856-7, p. 620.' 2 Ibid. 1845-6. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 1847-8. 5 Ibid. 1857-8. 6 Ibid. 1859-60. WHY READING IS BAD. 3 land, Mr. Sheridan, Head Inspector, reports that ' Almost universally the practice is to accustom the small children to utter the words one by one, and in the same tone throughout, which is always several degrees higher than the natural or speaking tone.' 1 My own experience as an inspector is in accordance with the statements of these gentlemen. I have found that even with the most advanced children the tone is monotonous, unnaturally high, and, generally, so unlike the tone in which they speak, that, when a child ceases to read and begins to enter into conversation, so great a difference is manifested, that one might suppose he was listening to different persons. Reasons assigned by the inspectors in Ireland. Many different reasons have been assigned for the prevalence of these defects. In Ireland, the inspectors attribute their existence to 'the infrequency of teaching reading,' 'to its not being taught as a distinct lesson,' 'to the neglect of it in favour of geometry, mensuration, &c.,'' to the habit which most teachers have of interrupting the children to correct errors of pronunciation, or to ask questions on the subject-matter of the lesson, or to require the derivation or meaning of some word;' to the fact that 'the monotonous pronunciation of the words incidental to the early attempts at reading are not diligently removed as the pupils gain fluency.' Causes assigned by the inspectors in England. In Great Britain, the causes assigned, in addition to the above, are: (1) Teachers' unwillingness to engage in the mechanical work of the school;'2 (2) Pupils and teachers too easily satisfied;3 (3) Shape of class; (4) Pupils do not read enough, owing to the size of class, and time spent in questioning, spelling, meanings, taking places, &c.;5 (5) Masters not conscious of the necessity which exists for applying special remedies; (6) Too much noise in schools; (7) Reading sentence by sentence, in order of position, and others too numerous to mention here, but to which reference is given in the foot notes.9 7 1 Report on Southern DistrictsNational Education Report, Ireland, 1859. 2 Min. of Council, 1857-8, p. 252. 3 Ibid. 1860-1, p. 187. 4 Education Commission, 1861, vol. i. p. 251; and Min. of Council, 1848-9, vol. i. p. 118. 5 Education Commission, 1861, vol. i. p. 251; Min. of Council, 185-5, pp. 170 and 269; Min. of Council, 1856-7, p. 238; 1860-1, p. 62. 6 6 Education Commission, 1861, vol. i. p. 252. 7 Min. of Council, 1847-8, vol. ii. p. 6. 8 Ibid. 1860-1, p. 188. 9 Ibid. 1846-7, vol. ii. p. 65; 1847-8, vol. ii. p. 6; 1848-9, vol. i. p. 119, and vol. ii. p. 179; 1852-3, p 873; 1856-7, pp. 238 and 620; 1859, pp. 30 and 194; 1860-1, pp. 170 and 188; Education Commission, 1861, vol. i. pp. 247, 248, 252, 253, &c. These causes can be traced to teachers' neglect. These causes may, I regret to say, be fairly attributed to some fault in the teaching body. There is scarcely any subject which requires more earnest care, constant labour, and never-failing patience, on the part of the teacher, than reading; but there is no subject on which, in my opinion, a conscientious master should produce a more marked effect, as it is brought almost continually under his notice from the first day of the child's school life until its close. 1. Rules to produce good reading. The following rules for teaching reading are chiefly drawn from my own experience. They are easy of application, and in the majority of cases they have proved effectual. I have arranged them, so far as they will admit of so simple a classification, under two heads. Those designed chiefly to secure expression, and those whose chief object is to make the children collect the meaning of the passage read. 1. Rule of Imitation. The great means to produce correct expression in reading may be said to consist in a steady adherence to one rule-THE RULE OF IMITATION; that is, to reading the sentence as it ought to be read, and causing the child to exercise his powers of imitation upon the model thus placed before him. Reading is, after all, but cultivated talking, and must, of necessity, be acquired as speaking itself is-by imitation. Where it is taught—that is, taught in the true sense of the word—the style of master and pupils ought to be very nearly the same; and this supplies a test, not, indeed, as to the quality of the reading, but as to whether it has been faithfully and earnestly attended to or not. Two ways to apply the rule. There are two ways in which the rule of imitation may be advantageously applied in practice: (1) Where the master reads and the child listens, and then endeavours to reproduce; (2) Where both read together. This last should be resorted to, however, only with the most backward, and chiefly in the junior classes; and, whenever used, the master should avail himself of the earliest opportunity of dispensing with it in favour of the other, which is the most rational and correct; for, when both read together, the master, being engaged in reading himself, cannot sufficiently attend to the errors of the child; and the child, being so completely engrossed with his own efforts on the one hand, and the master's style and tone on the other, is in danger of being too confused to imitate correctly, and must to a certainty lose the substance of what he reads. A third way described by Mr. Fletcher. There is, indeed, a third way of applying this rule, but, in my opinion, not so good as either of the others. It consists in allowing the child to make RULE OF IMITATION. 5 an effort himself, and then giving him the model, so that he may compare his own results with the true standard. Mr. Fletcher thus describes it: First, the selected hard words are spelt by each child in rotation, the monitor spelling them correctly after each, and not before it, that it may be enabled to appreciate the correction, if there be any, through having already made an effort. Next, each boy reads a word of the text, which is also read correctly after him by the monitor; a whole clause is then read by each in like manner, and under like correction. Finally, each reads a sentence completely, and, when he stumbles, appeal is made to other boys, when he who makes the true correction gains one place, and but one.' The same gentleman describes the application of one of the other plans to the teaching of the junior classes thus: "The monitors (who should all read very well) read the lessons sentence by sentence; and each child in turn reads sentence by sentence after them, round and round the class, until all have read each sentence, and then they read without the leadership of the monitors.' 2 Hints to carry out rule properly. When reading with the child, the teacher ought not to let his own exemplar reading be too continuous. He ought, occasionally, to cease, and allow the child to fill up the blank by himself, lest in the end he acquires the habit of repeating merely what he hears, and not what he sees. These blanks can be left in the easiest or most difficult parts, and made longer or shorter according to the proficiency of the child himself. Not to be too much at a time. When reading for the child, the teacher ought not to read too much at a time. It is clear that if he do the child is almost certain to forget the tone and style of the beginning while listening to the end. A small sentence, or one or two clauses of a large one, will in most cases be found sufficient, but with the advanced children more may be read. Of the exact quantity the teacher himself will be the best judge. Rule should be applied early. When not applied soon enough habits are formed which it is almost impossible to remove at any future time. Even the very lowest class children should be taught to group the words naturally-to speak them, in fact, as the master himself would speak them. Instead of permitting them to say, for instance, 'Hie—thee-home-from-school,' pausing after every word, they should be accustomed to say, 'Hie thee home-from school.' And this they can be taught to do by the master's repeating for them, or along with them, the words in groups as they ought to be repeated, and encouraging them to do 1 Min. of Council, 1847-8, vol. ii. p. 251. 2 Ibid. 1846, vol. ii. p. 412. |