6. At the present time the recitation period is commonly regarded as a test period, or a period for examination to prove the presence of knowledge on the part of pupils. The result is that most of the effort of preparation is spent in memory work. A different conception of the recitation is needed; namely, as a period for the interchange of one's thought in regard to the subject-matter before the class. The recitation period, in other words, would correspond to the clearing-house in business, where thoughts were freely exchanged and compared. In the process of such work the comprehension of the text would be tested, but much more than that would be accomplished.

7 and 8. Some experimental work with classes of children ten and eleven years of age, who had been enjoying unusually good advantages in school, have shown them to be remarkably helpless the moment the initiative in the conduct of a recitation was expected from them. This is true even in the so-called developing instruction where children participate actively; even there, the moment a teacher ceases to do most of the work, thoughts cease to flow and everything stops.

The good teacher, however, is the one who gradually makes herself unnecessary, placing the initiative more and more in the hands of the pupils. The ideal teaching would frequently find the teacher saying almost nothing during a recitation period, and only as that ideal is approximated in school will children know how to study independently out of school.

ROUND TABLE CONFERENCE C

TOPIC: READING IN THE FIRST SCHOOL YEAR

LEADER: MRS. ALICE W. COOLEY, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION
GRAND FOKKS, N. DAK,

INTRODUCTION BY THE LEADER

This much-discussed and long-discussed subject, why discuss it again? "Lest we forget" in practice. The truths so often repeated in the past, why repeat them here as the theses of this discussion? Lest we continue to forget in practice.

I. In each human life the first school year is one of its critical periods which mark that life with milestones and wayside shrines, with Mount Sinais and valleys of shadow, with new ideas and ideals, with changes in purpose and character. At this point each child turns his back on the days of babyhood, and sets out on a voyage of discovery in a new world-a world more or less magical and mysterious, but the big, real world he has been longing, yet half fearing, to enter; a world radiant with bright tho vague promise of visions and of victories that are to make him at last a part of the grown-up world. Its experiences color his whole life; they shape his ideals of the world of events, the world of men, the world of books. The vital question of this year is not, "How many facts can the child give ?” not, “How many words can he recognize, sound, and spell ?” but, "What ideas have become ideals? What habits has he formed?"

II. In the curriculum, the method of teaching, and the government of the school the teacher finds the means to be used; but it is her use of the means that determines their effect on the life of the child. This determines whether it shall be a year in which colors fade, visions grow dull and commonplace, and victories seem less worthy of effort as energy is misdirected to meaningless tasks; or whether it shall be a golden year of clearer vision of the real meaning of life, with increasing joy in the power gained by discoveries self-made and victories self-won, with inspiring glimpses of a yet larger world with higher mountain-tops to be climbed. Shall the eagerness for knowledge and activity be starved with uninteresting and lifeless "forms? Or shall it find satisfaction in growing power to master forms that have in them something to keep mind and soul awake, alive, and vigorous? The teacher answers by means of the what and the how of the teaching.

III. Of these means, the teaching of reading may be made to exert the most potent influences, the most vital, the most permanent. But the word "reading” must be given its full, legitimate meaning; and the teaching of reading, even in its first stages, must be understood to mean much more than teaching to recognize and pronounce words.

Reading always and everywhere has its twofold phase: it is imaging and thinking, with joy in these activities; it is also mastery of the symbols, with joy in this also. Oral reading is always and everywhere (1) seeing, thinking, and feeling incited by written words; (2) giving to another in the same words spoken the pictures found in the words written, for the purpose of rousing sympathetic thought and feeling in the listener. The first steps in teaching reading should be so taken that this should be the abiding impression left in the mind of the learner. His attitude toward words, toward reading, is more important than the number of words learned per month.

Learning to read in the lower grades differs from learning to read better in later years only in the emphasis of certain elements or steps in the process, not in the elements themselves. And this varying emphasis follows the development of the pupil. One can find in the words of another only so much as his own experience can interpret. But to teach reading to pupils of any age, in or out of school, is to accomplish many results. It is to develop literary taste, whether that taste be in its germ, bud, or flower; it is to cultivate and train the imagination; to lead to clearer and more definite thinking; to increase the pleasure in reading as the reader finds himself, a larger self, in what he reads—his own loves and hates, his own vaguely felt aspirations and half-conscious joys and sorrows embodied in the pictures of another's experience; to give increased facility in quick (at last, unconscious) recognition of word-forms. To teach oral reading is to do all these things, and, in addition, to train the reader to communicate this thought with distinct, correct pronunciation and in well-modulated tones.

The first steps in learning to read must then be getting vivid pictures-larger, clearer, more definite thoughts-of objects and events worth thinking and reading about, with higher ideals of beauty of form and sound. This can be done only by (1) contact with real things worth while to know; (2) enlarged experience; (3) expression in word and by hand; (4) ear-familiarity with stories and poems that portray in a simple and beautiful way experiences to some degree familiar; (5) increasingly accurate and distinct pronunciation, with ever better voice modulation and control.

The next steps unite with these (1) the associating of mental pictures with written forms and their sounds; (2) the increasing of ability, to give its meaning to others in spoken words at sight of the written form.

The question as to how many of these steps shall be taken in the first year of school is practically the question of completing the process of reading in that year; and this question is left open for discussion. The writer believes that children should be taught to read in the first year.

IV. Again, let us not forget, in teaching reading, the great danger of swinging too far away from the fundamental first principles that demand simplicity and naturalness. We have too often built up an elaborate system that is artificial, belittling, and smothering. In a simple, natural way, children still learn to talk; and, fortunately, we have not yet interfered.

The child's mind, primarily engaged with what it wishes to communicate thru soundsymbols, marks out for itself certain paths of activity. In helping him we follow those paths. Let us hope that no overzealous reformer will construct an intricate word-system requiring each baby to practice repeating a series of meaningless monosyllables before he shall be allowed to mispronounce or miscall words in making known his ideas and wishes. Yet this is the same child whose next step is from the spoken to the written form; and he remains under the same laws of imitation, association, repetition, and interest. Not to forget this would help many to teach reading.

V. Among the causes of departure from simple, natural growth to a hothouse growth

that does not promote health and real vigor are: (1) half-concealed and half-conscious admiration of the uniformity of machine-made or system-made products; (2) tendency to lose in a beautiful system the life it was designed to preserve; (3) hurry to get tangible and percentable results; (4) the fact that it requires of the teacher less insight and real skill, less individuality and power, to perfect form than to develop spirit.

The following practical questions are offered for discussion. All relate to teaching reading in the first school year. The theses stated hold in solution the key to the answers. I. What are the essential conditions?

II. What preparation, general and specific, is required of the teacher ?

III. What shall be the character of the lessons: (1) the subject-matter; (2) the phraseology?

IV. What relation between these reading-lessons and so-called language lessons? V. What relation between these lessons in reading and expression by hand in writing? drawing? painting? modeling? constructive work?

VI. Is systematic work in phonics valuable? If so, what? when? how taught? VII. Granting that actual reading shall be taught the first year, are word-drills valuable? If so, word-drills of what nature? when? how?

VIII. What independent study shall be required of the child?

IX. What shall be the general method of conducting a regular reading-exercise, or series of exercises?

X. When and how shall criticisms be made?

XI. What mental discipline in learning to read? What ethical training?

DISCUSSION

PROFESSOR J. F. REIGART, New York city. The purpose of reading is the creation of thought at the suggestion of the printed page. The essentials in making the page suggestive are (1) ideas; (2) association of word and symbol; (3) creation, thru description, problems, etc. The question arises as to how these essentials are provided. The ideas are furnished in the kindergarten, nature study, constructive work, etc. More is gained by spending some time upon these than by spending all of the time upon reading. The association of the word and the symbol is usually understood as teaching reading. This is essential, but is not the art of reading. Time may be thus spent for years without much progress. The primary object in teaching reading is to arouse creative thought, but there must be the association of word and symbol. When the child realizes the significance of this association as a means of creative thought, he is reading. This point is illustrated in the early education of Laura Bridgman and Helen Keller. The fault with early reading is that the child goes thru it blindly. In many cases the impetus to reading comes from the home.

The selection of material is important. The material is of two kinds. The first is the drill material. The second is the real reading material. It is calculated to arouse the creative thought. The two kinds should not be confused. The characteristics of the best reading material are (1) that it must arouse interest; it must provide something for the child to work for; (2) that it must be connected; the association of rhyme and rhythm is a help in arousing interest and forming connections; (3) that it should influence taste. Do not wait for the period of adolescence to arouse taste. Unless it is aroused sooner, it is not likely to be aroused then. The old-fashioned reading of the Bible was not a bad thing. The newer reading-books contain much good literature, but are padded with too much drill material.

The difficulty of method remains. We are afraid to rely upon this literature. The characteristic of method is that it should arouse thought and use the material. We learn to read by reading. The synthetic movement is essential. There must also be analysis. There comes a time when the child is ready to point out the words in the sentences. These

sentences may be parts of familiar verses. Then the words should be used in other connections. They should be associated with activities and used in giving directions. New words should be learned in the context.

Phonic analysis should be used thruout as a key. It is the great means to independence, but should not be associated at first with the reading, because reading is distinct from phonics.

As for age, the legal school age is not necessarily the one when the child should begin to read. The children in the kindergarten should learn mottoes and verses, should commit verses pick out words, and have phonic analysis.

In conclusion I would say: Read only good literature, do away with the made-up material still found in our readers, and make phonic analysis the key.

MR. PRENTISS, Brooklyn, N. Y.-What is the relation of phonics to reading under Mr. Reigart's system, and does he call learning Mother Goose reading?

MR. REIGART.—The principle of isolation is one that can be used with economy in teaching phonics. As to committing to memory, I find in teaching reading that there is the same help in reading what has been committed to memory as in committing poems when learning a foreign language.

MISS M. J. BRADY, primary supervisor, public schools, St. Louis, Mo.-One element to be considered in the teaching of reading is phonics. Just how much phonics, and when to begin it, are questions that are worth considering.

If we consider that right mental habits in reading are of greatest importance, then sounding will not begin with the early reading-lessons. Looking at words, or rather thru them, to get the thought they symbolize, is what reading means. We do this in actual practice, and we see words and phrases as wholes, and are not at all conscious of their parts. It would seem, then, that this habit of recognizing words and phrases as wholes should be the first habit to be established in the child's mind, as first habits are generally the ones to prevail.

It has been argued that pupils learn more words in a given time by having phonics from the beginning. This is undoubtedly true; but is glib word-calling reading? No; we all agree that it is not. So we simply have to choose whether we will do what will mean real growth for the child, or do what will make a show for the time being.

There comes a time, however, in later reading-lessons, when it would be a serious mistake not to give the child the key to the pronunciation of unfamiliar words. And this is the function of phonics—always a means to an end, and never an end in itself. With proper teaching, children feel this word-study to be subordinate to reading, while they enjoy it and are happy over the power it gives them to help themselves.

A short time ago we all taught the sound of every letter in the word, and used diacritical marks from the beginning. Groups of letters-phonograms, as they are called— may be taught as phonetic units, and sounds of separate letters taught only when it is impossible to find a larger phonetic unit. After a few phonograms are learned, the child delights in building new words out of the old elements by changing the initial consonant, or adding another phonogram, or both. When he is once able to do this, the teacher has only to direct the attention of the child to the familiar elements in new words as they Occur. The children gradually come to take the initiative in dealing with new words, and soon cease to be dependent on the teacher or on diacritical marks. As these marks occur only in word-lists in school readers, they are of no assistance to the child when he meets unfamiliar words in his reading, and may well be postponed.

W. E. CROSBY, New York city.-Reading is the most important of subjects considered by teachers. All learning found in books comes within its scope. No subject of the printed page that cannot be intelligently read can be understood. Expression is the end of teaching reading.

Conversation is creative. Reading is the expression of the creations of others. In practice the ear must be made acquainted with the voice before proper expression can be given to the ideas found in words. The ear is most intimately associated with the voice. The speaking and singing voices must be distinguished by the teacher before due expression can be secured. This is the doctrine of Dr. Rush, the greatest authority on the human voice.

RELATION OF DRAWING TO FIRST-YEAR READING

MISS A. GRACE GIBSON, Model School, New York Training School for Teachers."Words, like window-panes, are things to look thru, not things to look at." Reading in the best sense is thought-getting, not word-accumulation. Hence the necessity of storing thought material in the child's mind and thus laying a foundation for reading. Otherwise reading may become an accurate expressing of words rather than a grasping of the content of the lesson. The less conscious the child is of words, in an analytic sense. the farther his little mind may travel with the person or object of which he reads. Thoughts thus secured may arouse others, and a whole train springs up and unfolds, if the simple lesson be untrammeled by phonic drills, word-construction lessons, word-analysis, etc. These things are altogether necessary, but they belong to the "shop" and should be dealt with at a distinct time, lest the child become conscious of the process and miss the aim of the lesson.

Reading time should be the "holiday" when our little fellow goes out with his playmates on a pleasure trip, not in search of a vocabulary, but of ideas which may come to him thru the phrase, word, or sentence. Ability to secure the idea makes a ready reader. Unconscious of structure, whether by word or picture or combination of these, he gleans the thoughts, and his mind becomes alive with them.

To this end drawing-the illustration of words, phrases, and sentences-becomes of inestimable help to the beginner, especially in cramped city life, where the child's horizon is so narrowed by the tenements about him. So simple a thing as a nest on a branch is a foundation for a full page. Sketch the bird also, the eggs in the nest, or the baby birds. Allow one child to form a story (sentence). Let another read it. Keep the work free, and the child's interest will be sustained. It was well said today that the word "Washington" was as easy to read as "Joe" if the interest was equal.

Phrases may be taught as a whole thru picture-making. Let us follow a few simple sketches: in the tree, on the branch, over the roof, thru the flowers, by the house, near the brook, etc. In this way a child becomes familiar with location, movement, direction, etc., and the phrase becomes a unit of thought as fully as an individual word may do so. The child may picture objects and write their names to impress new words. Three steps may help the reading for beginners: (1) Conversations, nature and object-lessons, stories, rhymes, etc. (2) Convert these into reality by allowing the child to reproduce by word and picture. (3) Let the teacher put these into reading form by sentence and picture, allowing the child to read and reproduce, not in his own words, but in the form presented by the picture.

THE RELATION OF WRITING TO READING

MISS FANNIE B. GRIFFITHS, primary supervisor, public schools, St. Louis, Mo.-A child entering the primary finds two new and difficult problems awaiting him: that of getting thought thru a medium which is entirely new to him-the printed page, and that of expressing thought thru the equally unfamiliar medium of writing. He no longer comes unwillingly to school to learn these; for modern methods and attractive and interesting books have robbed these problems of much of their former tediousness. He comes well prepared, too; for during the earlier years of his life he has made considerable progress in learning. Gradually, without conscious effort and without conscious tuition, he has