How to Teach a Child to Read at Home

Above are the big and little letters of the Alphabet.

Below is a story with all these letters in words.

I saw the big ox when I went to the Zoo last week.
It was in a den by the cave and stood near the bars.
I thought it looked quite fierce when it stared at me.
It made me jump when it put its nose out of the bars.
A man fed the ox with some hay that he got from a box.
It then lay down on the hard floor and had a nap.
I should not like to be in the den with the ox.

It is not a proper test of a child’s advance that he should be able to read very early. Neither do we now make the teaching of reading the chief object in first lessons. Rather does the child learn first to master the difficult art of connecting spoken sounds with written signs somehow, on the happy road from babyhood to schooldays, while his mother still holds him by the hand.

The training of your boy’s ear in detecting the sounds that go to make up the words he uses is of the very first importance. You encourage him in the use of language by getting him to talk freely about what you do together, describing in his own pretty way the flowers, birds, toys, pictures that he loves. All the time you are gently insisting on perfect pronunciation, clear, pleasant modulation of his speaking voice, quiet breathing through the nose. Presently, when you see he is quite ready for it, you lay stress on the sounds made at the beginning and end of such words as cat, dog, puss, pig. He will soon copy quite accurately the sounds of the various consonants, and find other words beginning or ending with similar sounds to those in the examples you give.

Later will come the vowel sounds, and patient work will be needed to make him see the difference in the various sounds of a, o, and so on. At this stage it will amuse him to have a looking-glass before him to see how the shape of his mouth alters when speaking. Let him practice working the muscles round his lip and moving his tongue freely. It will also help if he sings the vowels, thus—take deep breath, sing a (as in father) as long as the breath lasts; take breath, sing a (as in fate), in same way; and so on with all the vowel sounds.

You will, of course, make a table of all the sounds you teach him for your own use, with lists of suitable words, and something has really been accomplished in the numberless five-minute sound-lessons when the child can break up the words he uses into the sounds that go to make them—b-u-n, bun; f-i-g, fig.

So much for the first training in recognizing and reproducing the sounds.

And now we come face to face with the much-discussed question—when and how is a child to learn the letters (the printed signs of sounds) and the names given to these letters? Some children settle this question for themselves by “picking up” these letters and their names from picture-books and blocks with little outside help, but they will find it useful later on to know the names of the letters and the order of the alphabet. See to it that your boy learns to call the letters by their sounds, not their names, and help him to realize that the letters are the signs of the sounds, used to tell us what sounds we are to utter.

You have a sand-tray? Let the fat little finger practice making a round o in it, while the rosy lips form the long o, as in no and lord, the short sound, as in not; or tracing crooked s while he hisses like the geese on the common, or says “puss,” “sat,” and so on.

If you have a box of good, plain letters, let him pick out the m in mouse, the t in table and in rat. Your small blackboard will come in handy, for he will be most happy to print on it in chalks the letters as he learns them. Let him model their shapes in clay, draw and paint them in colors, make them out of slips and curves of colored cardboard, varying the practice as much as possible; and see to it that he is never bored. He will soon greatly enjoy identifying and cutting out large and small letters as he learns them from advertisements in big type, and pasting them in a “letter” scrapbook, made by fastening together a few sheets of brown paper. Guide him to class together v and f, r and l, s and z, b and p, m and n, t and d, and the vowels in their order, with a whole page to themselves—this with a view to the time when he begins to study seriously.

But that is looking far ahead. We have now brought him to the point of being ready for his first reading lesson. But do not hurry; give his eyes plenty of distance work, plenty of training in reading Nature’s wide-open book, before you put printed books into his hands. He is to be a keen lover of books, so make him want to read, and see to it that he is interested and happy every moment of the time given to his reading lesson.

Here is the method:

Buy three copies of some well-printed simple stories; put one copy aside, and cut up the other two, pasting the sheets on drawing-paper, alternate pages face down, so that you get one complete copy out of the two books.

Now cut up, line by line, and then word by word, the first little story, and put the words in a small tray or box. Perhaps it is, “Thank you, pretty cow.” So now print on your blackboard two or three of the words—cow, milk, pretty, the child earnestly watching and listening while you say the words very distinctly, giving the component sounds as clearly as you possibly can.

Then hand him the tray, and let him pick out the words and name them as you have done. Proceed in the same way with a few more words of the story, printing them as you go in a column on the board, and when he knows them up and down, in and out, the great moment has arrived. Your heart will beat as you put the little book—the copy that was not cut up—into his hands. He can read, so much at any rate, quite readily.

Note that there must be no spelling; it is “look and say.” Next day you take word-building with the box of letters, and a fine game you have, based on the words learned the day before. Add letters and syllables in every way you can think of, always giving sounds, not names; let the boy read, copy, take from dictation these new words for a happy twenty minutes. He is now learning to spell, that he may be able to write with the sound signs. Go on like this, reading one day, word-building the next, till several sets of little books have been used up.

Let him dramatize the little stories and poems whenever you can; take parts with him, thus laying the foundation of real, live reading aloud, without any disfiguring mannerisms or self-consciousness. His stock of words grows apace—ten a day will give over three thousand in a year—and little by little, as opportunity offers, the more complex sounds in our language and its puzzling irregularities are unfolded and made familiar. Thus reading, elocution, spelling, writing, all advance together.

The study of Nature should go hand in hand with the study of books. Children love the outdoors—the trees, the flowers, the grass,—all living things. Nature trains the special senses, awakens the powers of observation, and creates a love of both the beautiful and the useful.

THE CHILD’S PICTURE GRAMMAR—NOUNS AND VERBS
A NOUN IS THE NAME OF ANY THING—A VERB TELLS WHAT A NOUN DOES OR IS DONE TO

THE HORSE STOPS	THE FISH SWIMS	THE BOY HOPS	THE BIRD SKIMS
THE RAIN FALLS	THE BABE CRIES	THE MAN HAULS	THE BEE FLIES
BALLOONS RISE	ACORNS DROP	THE WOMAN BUYS	AIRGUNS POP
THE CART IS DRAWN	THE HOOP IS ROLLED	THE SHEEP IS SHORN	THE LAWN IS ROLLED
THE DOG IS LED	THE PIG IS DRIVEN	THE LION IS FED	THE PRIZE IS GIVEN
THE FIRE BURNS	THE WATER FLOWS	THE BOAT TURNS	THE TRAIN GOES

WHAT OUR DOMESTIC ANIMALS GIVE US
THE USEFUL THINGS OBTAINED FROM THE COW, HORSE, SHEEP, GOAT, PIG, FOWL, AND DEER

MILK	CHEESE	LEATHER	COMBS	BUTTONS	JELLY
	BUTTER	BEEF	KNIFE-HANDLES	SOAP	GLUE
CHAIR-COVERS	HAIR FOR STUFFING SOFAS		PLUMES	CATGUT	SOCKS
MUTTON	WOOLLEN GOODS		RUGS	BOOK COVERS	CARPETS
MILK	WIGS	GLOVES		BOOK COVERS	WATER SKINS
PERSIAN SHAWLS		SHOE-LACES	KNIFE-HANDLES
PORK	BACON	LEATHER GOODS	BRISTLES		BLADDERS
				LARD	GLYCERINE
EGGS	FLESH	FEATHERS FOR BEDS AND PILLOWS			FEATHERS FOR HATS
KNIFE-HANDLES		GLOVES	HAIR FOR STUFFING SADDLES	VENISON

MILK	CHEESE	LEATHER
MILK	BUTTER	BEEF
COMBS	BUTTONS	JELLY
KNIFE-HANDLES	SOAP	GLUE
CHAIR-COVERS	HAIR FOR STUFFING SOFAS
PLUMES	CATGUT	SOCKS
MUTTON	WOOLLEN GOODS
RUGS	BOOK COVERS	CARPETS
MILK PERSIAN SHAWLS WIGS
SHOE-LACES GLOVES KNIFE-HANDLES
BOOK COVERS WATER SKINS
PORK BACON LEATHER GOODS
	LARD	GLYCERINE
BRISTLES		BLADDERS
EGGS	FLESH	FEATHERS FOR HATS
FEATHERS FOR BEDS AND PILLOWS
KNIFE-HANDLES		GLOVES
HAIR FOR STUFFING SADDLES	VENISON

Cattle THE CHILDREN OF THE ANIMALS Horses

A YOUNG DEER IS CALLED A FAWN		A YOUNG HORSE IS CALLED A COLT		A YOUNG COW IS CALLED A CALF
A YOUNG SWAN IS A CYGNET	A YOUNG EAGLE IS AN EAGLET		A YOUNG HEN IS A CHICKEN		A YOUNG DUCK IS A DUCKLING
A YOUNG GOOSE IS A GOSLING	A YOUNG FROG IS A TADPOLE		A YOUNG HARE IS A LEVERET		A YOUNG OWL IS AN OWLET
A YOUNG FOX IS A CUB	A YOUNG GOAT IS A KID		A YOUNG SHEEP IS A LAMB		A YOUNG TROUT IS AN ALEVIN
A YOUNG SALMON IS A GRILSE		A YOUNG DOG IS A PUPPY		A YOUNG CAT IS A KITTEN

The young of some animals have special names, and with many of these we are familiar. But there are other young creatures whose particular names are not so well known. In the pictures on this page we see the young of eighteen different creatures with their mothers, and the special names of these are given.

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