same extent as the adult lists. Furthermore, study of the common element in the two composite vocabularies revealed marked differences in the frequency of use of the same words on the part of children and adults. The total divergence of the two vocabularies, after the totals were equalized, was 40 per cent. Let us now be clear in regard to the real issue in this discussion. There is apparently no objections to the establishment of the ultimate goals of curriculum endeavor on the basis of adult behavior. I think we are all in favor of it. Even the extreme advocates of the project method will probably agree that teachers should perform their directive functions with hese social ends in sight. The argument of this paper is rather that the analysis of adult activities is not an adequate source of materials for the curriculum. The results of such an analysis will require ooth supplementation and curtailment, for here will be sins of omission as well as ins of commission. My esteemed colleague, Professor Bobitt, whose subtle and influential contriutions to the theory of curriculum onstruction have at times seemed tincured by the sociological heresy under disussion, has recently freed himself from Il suspicion. In an article' on "The New Technique of Curriculum-making" he has tated his position with such definiteness hat one need not remain in doubt bout it: ....the activity-analyst must see human activities within any field not at any one particular age, but as a series of activities which take place at all of the age levels from infancy to old age....The analysis is to show what is normal for each of the levels. This is indeed a reassuring clarification. ending support to the central contention f this paper. When I expressed my aproval of this significant passage to the author, shortly after it appeared, he remarked, "Ah, you think I have changed my opinion, don't you?" I has suspected that he had at least indulged in a judicious amplification. The research findings in the field of spelling are arrayed against an exclusively adult standard for the selection of the content of the curriculum. In a scientific course of study in spelling, the vocabulary of adults will not be substituted for the words which children need in order to write about the things and the activities that touch their deepest interests. And a similar outcome may be safely predicted in many other sections of the curriculum. Children will continue to profit by the reform initiated in America a hundred years ago under the leadership of Colburn and to study number relations within the range of childhood experience, while at the same time curriculum-makers will outline the objectives of the course of study after the method inaugurated by Wilson. Similarly, in acquiring the reading skill for effective participation in social life, children will continue to use nursery rhymes and fairy tales, stories of adventure and animal life all in a vocabulary that differs materially from that of the news reports on the front page of the daily paper. The movement under discussion is in truth a resuscitation of the disciplinary doctrine, it is compulsory education in a new guise, and it is socialistic in its trend. Not social domination and denial of the individual, but respect for the objects and and the activities that touch his deepest interests at every level of his development, with guidance in the light of socially determined ends-this, I venture to suggest, is the meaning of democracy in the construction of the curriculum. 1Bobbitt, Franklin. "The New Technique of Curriculum-making", Elementary School Journal, XXV, 1, 1924. Pp. 54. AN EXPERIMENT WITH THE PICTURE STORY READING METHOD By DENTON L. GEYER, Director, Bureau of Experimental Education, EDITOR'S NOTE: Established by vote of the Board of Superintendents in June, 1924, upon recommendation of the Chicago Pedagogical Club, the Bureau of Experi mental Education at the Chicago Normal College is now bringing to a close its second year of activity. Its primary purpose is to try out new ideas, devices, and materials in education under such carefully controlled conditions as to make possible the measurement of results. It has experimented thus far with materials and individual methods in arithmetic, spelling, handwriting, and reading. Before beginning these experiments carried on in the classroom itself, the Bureau undertook a statistical analysis of the scores on a series of intelligence tests made by the entering classes at the Normal College since 1920. These scores have now been put into a form which permits comparison of this normal school with other teacher-training institutions and with universities, comparisons of groups of students within the College (as household arts with kindergarten students, etc.), comparison of scores with scholarship records, and so on. These studies will appear in another connection. The experiments in handwriting will be described in the June number of this journal. T HE Bureau of Experimental Education has conducted a controlled experiment in individualized instruction in primary reading with the use of the Courtis-Smith Picture-Story Reading Lessons. These lessons are built on the principle that the development of certain character qualities, such as selfreliance and the ability to form and carry out purposes, are the concerns of primary importance and that learning to read is incidental to these. The aims to be achieved in these lessons are stated by the author, Nila Banton Smith, in this way: "1. To develop the child's power to purpose through reading situations. "2. To enable him to use his reading as a tool in carrying out his purposes from the time of his first contact with the activity. "3. To provide some means whereby the child may largely teach himself in learning to read. ters that the child learns reading while learning to read the directions for carrying on a certain activity in which all children. are interested, namely, coloring pictures, cutting them out, and pasting them in at certain order on a frame. To this end each child is provided with: (a) a large "Lessons Pad" of frames, cut-outs, and directions; (b) a dictionary; (c) a pad of stories ("Story-Book Pad”); (d) a story-book cover; (e) a large envelope or container in which to keep the material. The first pictures are very simple and are constructed by imitation of the teacher's example, from her oral instructions or from directions composed by the class and printed on the blackboard. But is understood, each child is given a simple as soon as the general idea of the method set of printed directions, each word of which is illustrated in such a way that it is possible for the child to teach himself. New words in each lesson the pupil learns to know, first by matching them with words under the pictures which the teacher puts on the blackboard, and later by matching them with the words under the pictures in his little dictionary. The dietionary "defines", of course, by showing a picture of the object rather than by the use of other words. Connective words are learned by reading slowly certain short memorized sentences on the labels. When the child has completed each picture following directions for coloring. cutting, and pasting-he tears off the to sheet from the pad of stories with which he is provided and finds there a sma replica of the picture he has made, together with a story about the picture which involves all the new words that he 1 Published by the World Book Company, Chicag On the Chicago supplementary reading list as numbers The general plan is so to arrange mat- 2003, 2003.01-.06. been teaching himself while building picture. If his picture is not like the roduction, he removes the parts that in the wrong places, rereads his direcns, and makes corrections. He then dies the stories about the picture, with erence to his dictionary if necessary. en he feels that he is prepared, he goes the teacher and reads it aloud to her. is oral reading of the story is a test the child's ability to recognize the new rds that he has learned during the pice-building activity. Each child now proceeds at his own rate, d the thickness of his collection of comted stories (which he keeps in his ory-Book Cover) is tangible evidence at times, to himself and to his parents, of accomplishment. Since the children ish the series of lessons at different nes and reach the primers at different tes, not many copies of any one primer reader are needed. The reduction of pense for books thus tends to offset the ry considerable expense for the Reading -ssons themselves. E. Lane of the Carter School, and Mr. Daniel J. Beeby of the Oglesby School. Their assistance in rearranging classes at request and in administering tests needed is very much appreciated. To the classroom teachers immediately in charge of the experimental teaching, Miss Leonore Mortimer and Miss Margaret J. Connerty, the heartiest thanks are due for their effort in mastering the new scheme and their conscientiousness in carrying it out. In February, 1925, in the Carter School the experimental material was used in the only IB room organized at that time. This was to a slight extent a select group, since nine children having a mental age of less than six years, according to the Detroit First Grade Intelligence Test, were sent elsewhere. In the Oglesby School two rooms were organized, the experimental material being placed in one and the other kept as a control room. No intelligence tests were given here at this time, and no effort made to equate the rooms. Q3 Md. Q3 Md. Q1 3.0 The method of conducting the experi- tained at the end of the semester. It will Table I shows the reading ability atbe noticed that on the best of the reading tests for this age the two experimental rooms made exactly the same median score, and that this is very much higher than the median in the control room or the norm. It will also be seen that, in the school having two IB rooms, the lower quartile point in the experimental room (12.5) exceeds the upper quartile point in the control room (9.9)—that is, the child only a fourth of the way from the bottom Later it proved to be advantageous, as this was method of presentation as outlined in the Teacher's Manual. It gave an opportunity to observe resu with different types of children. We determined to give the experiment a fair tria by following closely the instructions contained in th Manual after we had made sure that we could acce the educational principles upon which the lessons ar based. of the experimental group could read bet- experiment to test the value of the material and ter than the child a fourth of the way from the top of the control room. The two teachers were of approximately the same ability, but whether the two groups of the children were so is, as above noted, unknown. It is also seen that the lower quartile point in the experimental room is. equal to the median score made in Detroit. The words making up this test are taken from those which occur in the 500 commonest words of the Thorndike Word Book and also in ten widely used first readers. In the Haggerty scores it is again seen that in Test I the two experimental rooms make almost the same score, and that they equal or exceed the announced standards for children who have been in school twice as long. The median reading score in the Carter School surpasses its norm by a good deal more than the median intelligence score surpasses its norm. Regarding any individual child, the two tests agree very closely. In the Carter School a record was made of the number of primers and readers completed during this first semester. One child read eight primers, four first readers, and three second readers; four children read eight primers and three first readers each; five children read six primers each; twelve children read four primers each; seven children read two primers each; and six children read one primer each. The most important outcomes of this experiment the development of such things as initiative, self-reliance, social consciousness, etc.-were not measured. At present we have no instruments for measuring them. These have to be estimated. The recorded impressions of one of the principals at the end of the first semester are therefore given here. READING EXPERIMENT IN THE CARTER By ABBY E. LANE, Principal The class of beginners in first grade using the Picture-Story Reading Lessons was by no means a homogeneous group. At first this seemed unfortunate. The lessons stress purposeful activity on the part the children as more important than learning to reac The children learn to read, to be sure, and their reading is neither incidental nor accidental. From the begin ning they read for the purpose of achieving a desir result, and so, almost unconsciously, gain contrel c the reading tool. At the same time the children are able to test the value of their reading by their success or failure in reaching their objective. Two importa aims of instruction, motive and judgment of values, are fundamental. Six-year-old children vary greatly in their pre-scho experience and consequently in their funds of gener knowledge. These lessons are so planned that a teacher can successfully handle forty-five children in a classroom and yet "respect these individual differences" allowing each child to progress at his own rate. Th will impress many as impossible until they have tried the plan. The interest of even the slower children in realing their own purposes and in making use of past experience in setting up new ends makes for a differe an easier and a more satisfactory means of pupil cortrol than that of the conventional schoolroom. Tr teacher is a help to the children in meeting new de culties and a guide in interpreting their experiences When a child has mastered the twenty-nine less he has a working vocabulary of 265 words and is ab power developed as a result of some drill in phoni Our conditions for carrying on the experiment ser far from ideal. The May moving took heavy toll 4 that time we lost ten of the forty-five who began lessons in February. An epidemic of whooping cor and one of measles depleted our ranks for weeks at time. The individual rate of progress, however, et abled children, absent from six to eight weeks w whooping cough, to take up the work they had left no apparent loss of interest. All absentees compla the twenty-nine lessons before the end of the semest Miss Smith has made a distinct contribution to be the material and the method of instruction for primer grades. We hope to see the Picture-Story Rear Lessons placed on the Chicago textbook list for use of those who appreciate its possibilities. Th lessons, with a classroom library of single copies primers and first readers, would make an excl equipment for a first grade room. In September, 1925, an improvement the experiment was undertaken. In th Carter School, the Detroit First Grade Intelligence Test was given at the begining of the semester and the pupils were o divided as to make three rooms of equal ability. That is, an equal proportion of right, of average, and of dull pupils were placed in each of three rooms. The experimental material was placed in one room, in the hands of the same teacher vho had used it the previous semester, ind the other two rooms were held as conrol rooms." TABLE II READING SCORES IN JANUARY, 1926 Ꮓ Rooms Detroit Ability Groupings X Y 25.0 19.0 id. 17.0 12.0 7.0 at the end of one semester equals the median in Detroit at the beginning of the second year (Table III, column 4). We also notice that the median score in Room A is practically the same as the upper quartile point (Q3) in the Detroit averageability group; it is slightly above the upper quartile point in Room C, i. e., the average or middle child in Room A can read as well as the child only one-fourth of the way from the top in Room C. In Room A the lower quartile point (Q1) exceeds those of the two control rooms by nearly a semester's normal gain-tending to show that even the dull pupils learn more when put on their own initiative under a system of individual instruction than when taught by the class method. That the teaching in the control rooms was not below average in quality seems to be shown by the fact that the median scores of Rooms B and C, when compared with the median score in Detroit normal IB-1A 1A-2B 2B-1A ability group, is practically the same or slightly higher. 8 8 6 5 Table II shows the results of the WordRecognition Test given in January, 1926. Room A is the experimental room. It is een that these children make a much etter score than those of equal ability 1 the two control rooms, and better than he children of average ability in Detroit. n detail, we see that the median score in oom A exceeds the median in Room B y 4 points. By reference to Table III e see that 4 points is about half the mount of gain usually made in a semester the first year. The median of Room A xceeds that of Room C, the other control om, by 6.6 points, or by about threeurths of a normal semester's gain. The edian of Room A is practically the same the median of the brightest group (the group) in Detroit, is 11 points beyond at of the slow group in Detroit, and irpasses the average-ability group (the group) in Detroit, with which it ould naturally be compared, by 6 ints, or about three-fourths of a mester. The median score in Room A Table IV shows the results in January, 1926, from the Haggerty tests. The same superiority of the experimental group is revealed here. For example, it is seen that their median score equals or exceeds the upper quartile score in the other two rooms. The median in the experimental 1B rooms is slightly above the norm for IA children. In general, the experiments would seem to show that the Picture-Story Reading Lessons furnish a very good method for 2 The experiment was also continued in the Oglesby School, but serious illness of the principal just at the end of the semester prevented the final tests from being given. 3 In Detroit the brightest children of each grade are placed in one room, the average pupils in another, and the dullest in another. |