Product Description
As soon as a child knows its alphabet, it can be taught, that in 'm' and 'y' spell my, and that 'c' and 'a' and 't' spell cat; he can then put the words together, and read, my cat. In a short time, he can be taught to read little stories, composed of words of one syllable, and from this, the transition is easy, to words of more than one syllable.It is but a few years, since teaching a child to read was a very different process from this. The little martyr, in commencing his education, was sent to school, to be confined upon a hard seat, for many long hours in the day, with only the occasional change of being called up, for a few minutes, to say his letters. . The alphabet presented was often in a small, obscure type, and printed on bad paper. The teacher, pointing to the letters, pronounced their names, requiring the child to repeat them after him. This becoming an exercise wholly mechanical, day after day passed, bringing the poor child apparently no nearer the completion of the formidable task of learning his letters. He at length became able to call one letter after another, when presented in regular order; but, taken separately, and in any other place than the accustomed column of letters, they were, perhaps, as unintelligible as Hebrew or Greek characters. Children, even of good abilities, tortured, for months, and even years, in this absurd and stupefying method of teaching; but when the teacher, in despair of their ever mastering their alphabet, put them upon spelling, the work was found to be accomplished; as a few exercises of this kind connected, in the child's mind, the form, with the sound, of the letters.
