PREFACE This Manual has been prepared in the belief that reading is the most important subject in the curriculum, and that to teach it effectively requires careful daily preparation. In the congested program of studies incident to the present-day school," such preparation has become exceedingly burdensome to the teacher. The authors hope to lighten the task by providing ready-to-use material which may be freely drawn upon. The Elson Readers are pioneers in the field of thought reading. Recent studies, particularly those in silent reading, emphasize anew the fact that comprehension of thought is the primary aim in all reading. Since thought interpretation is the chief aim in all reading lessons, the teacher should test her pupils to make sure that they have a thorough understanding of the story-unit. She should see to it that pupils have ability in both silent and oral reading. To facilitate for the teacher the work of testing informally for speed and comprehension, the authors have noted the number of words in all prose selections likely to be used for silentreading material and have also supplied for daily practice various types of comprehension tests-questions, completion tests, true-false tests-following in general the technique of the different standardized tests for silent reading. If through daily practice pupils are made familiar with the principles of scientific testing, gratifying results will appear when one of the nationally-used standardized tests is applied. Sometimes a single poem or an individual prose selection forms a study-unit; then again an entire group is treated as a unit, each selection being studied in the light of others in the group. The selections in Part IV form a study-unit, the basis for an American-literature project, the steps in the project being a series of fifteen problems. The purpose of the Manual is to suggest especially to the teacher of limited experience a variety of methods of procedure rather than to supply a quantity of additional material. A method worked out in detail for one selection will serve as a guide in teaching a similar piece of literature. The teacher will find, among others, suggestions for developing study habits, for motivating reading, for the individual volunteer assignment and the differentiated assignment, for mutual teaching and coöperative learning, for the socialized recitation-in fact, suggestions for teaching reading and literature according to the principles of recognized authorities. This Manual aims to suggest ways of helping the child to overcome the difficulties that lie in the way of his understanding good literature. Explanations and suggestions alone will not do this, but they will be of great service in creating conditions that make for genuine pleasure in reading good poetry and prose. Everything possible should be done, first to command the child's interest in the selection, and then to awaken his admiration for it. The teacher's expressions of pleasure in the selection, if genuine, will go far toward stimulating a like feeling in the minds of the pupils. |