11. Vigorous and forcible expression is secured:--
(_a_) By having interesting stories.
(_b_) By apt questions to bring out the emphatic thought.
(_c_) By dramatizing the scenes of the story.
(_d_) By occasional examples of lively reading by the teacher.
(_e_) By definiteness in questioning.
CHAPTER VIII
LIST OF BOOKS FOR PRIMARY GRADES
In selecting reading books for primary grades the purpose is to find those which will give the readiest mastery of the printed forms of speech.
For this purpose books need to be well graded and interesting. Primary teachers have expended their utmost skill upon such simple, attractive, and interesting books for children. Pictorial ill.u.s.tration has added to the clearness and beauty of the books, so that, with the rivalry of many large publishing houses, we now have a great variety of good primary books to select from.
The earliest and simplest of these are the primers, which, followed by the first readers, give the most necessary drills upon the forms of easy words and sentences. Great care has been taken to give an easy regular grading so as to let a child help himself as much as possible. But as soon as children, by blackboard exercises and by means of primers, have gained a mastery of the simpler words and the powers of the letters, the Mother Goose rhymes, the fables and fairy tales (already familiar to the children in oral work) are introduced into their reading books in the simplest possible forms.
The use of interesting rhymes and stories in this early reading is the only means of giving it a lively content and of thus securing interest and concentration of thought. Good primary teachers have been able in this way to relieve the reading lessons of their tedium, and, what is equally good, have strengthened the interest of the children in the best literature of childhood.
Besides the choicest fables and fairy tales, many of the simpler nature myths and even such longer poems and stories as "Hiawatha," "Robinson Crusoe," and "Ulysses" have been used with happy results as reading books in the first three years. There are also certain collections of children"s poems, such as Stevenson"s "Child"s Garden of Verses,"
Field"s "Love-songs of Childhood," Sherman"s "Little Folk Lyrics," "Old Ballads in Prose," "The Listening Child," and others, which may suggest the beauty and variety of choice literary materials which are now easily within the reach of teachers and children in primary schools.
There is no longer any doubt that little folk in primary cla.s.ses may reap the full benefit of a close acquaintance with these favorite songs, stories, and poems, and that in the highest educative sense the effect is admirable.
In the following list the books for each grade are arranged into three groups:--
_First._ A series of choicest books and those extensively used and well adapted for the grade as regular reading exercises.
_Second._ A supplementary list of similar quality and excellence, but somewhat more difficult.
They may, in some cases, serve as subst.i.tutes for those given in the first group.
_Third._ A collection of books for teachers, partly similar in character to those mentioned in the two previous groups and partly of a much wider, professional range in literature, history, and nature. Some books of child-study, psychology, and pedagogy are also included. The problems of the primary teacher are no longer limited to the small drills and exercises in spelling and reading, but comprehend many of the most interesting and far-reaching questions of education. It is well, therefore, for the primary teacher to become acquainted not only with the great works of literature but with the best professional books in education.
LIST OF CHOICE READING MATTER FOR THE GRADES
FIRST GRADE--FIRST SERIES
Cyr"s Primer. Ginn & Co.
Cyr"s First Reader. Ginn & Co.
Riverside Primer and First Reader. Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.
Nature Stories for Young Readers (Plants), D. C. Heath & Co.
Hiawatha Primer. Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.
Stepping Stones to Literature, Book I. Silver, Burdett, & Co.
Child Life Primer. The Macmillan Co.
Taylor"s First Reader. Werner School Book Co.
Arnold"s Primer. Silver, Burdett, & Co.
The Thought Reader. Ginn & Co.
Sunbonnet Babies. Rand, McNally, & Co.
Nature"s By-ways. The Morse Co.
Graded Cla.s.sics, No. I. B. F. Johnson Pub. Co.
Graded Literature, No. I. Maynard, Merrill, & Co.
First Reader (Hodskins). Ginn & Co.
Baldwin"s Primer (Kirk). American Book Co.
FIRST GRADE--SECOND SERIES
Six Nursery Cla.s.sics (O"Shea). D. C. Heath & Co.
Verse and Prose for Beginners in Reading. Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.
Stories for Children. American Book Co.
Rhymes and Fables. University Publishing Co.
The Finch First Reader. Ginn & Co.
Baldwin"s First Reader. American Book Co.
Heart of Oak, No. 1. D. C. Heath & Co.
Choice Literature, Book I (Williams). Butler, Sheldon, & Co.
Child Life, First Book. The Macmillan Co.
Fables and Rhymes for Beginners. Ginn & Co.
FIRST GRADE--FOR TEACHERS--THIRD SERIES
A Book of Nursery Rhymes (Mother Goose). D. C. Heath & Co.
The Adventures of a Brownie. Harper & Bros.
Kindergarten Stories and Morning Talks (Wiltse). Ginn & Co.
Talks for Kindergarten and Primary Schools (Wiltse). Ginn & Co.
Hall"s How to Teach Reading. D. C. Heath & Co.
Place of the Story in Early Education (Wiltse). Ginn & Co.
Methods of Teaching Reading (Branson). D. C. Heath & Co.
Lowell"s Books and Libraries. Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.
Ruskin"s Books and Reading. In Sesame and Lilies.
Lectures to Kindergartners (Peabody). D. C. Heath & Co.
Mother Goose (Denslow). McClure, Phillips, & Co.
Boston Collection of Kindergarten Stories. J. L. Hammett & Co.
The Study of Children and their School Training (Warner).
The Macmillan Co.
The Story Hour (Kate Douglas Wiggin). Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.
Trumpet and Drum (Eugene Field). Scribner"s Sons.
A Child"s Garden of Verses (Robert Louis Stevenson). Scribner"s Sons.