V. A later period for speed and ease. (Review period.) There should be much reading of familiar material. Therefore, in another period the teacher should have the children re-read several pages, thus getting practice in reading several lines of familiar material to find answers to questions that bring out the organization. Children should also dramatize a story, thus showing that they have the content and spirit. They should have extended oral reviews in periodical Story Parties, when they entertain others. In all these reviews stress is put on quickness in reading the several lines of a thought group or section. Thus, organization of a page or a story is unconsciously impressed on the children. Towards the end of the Primer and throughout the First Reader conscious work is done in organization, or finding topics of paragraphs. See Review, p. xxiv. VI. Application of basal words in a new situation, and testing. (Daily silent reading seat work.) Diagnostic tests in this seat work, given every fifth day in the Primer and every tenth day in the First Reader, form the basis for discriminating drill applied to the Groups that need it (in Group Work periods) and definite and graded suggestions in Word Study periods. See Seat Work, page xxv. Reinforcement. This new lesson described in topics I-VI is further introduced and supported by two Incidental Reading periods a day, and the working up of a project that arouses great interest in the reading lesson. Suggestions for carrying reading training into other first-grade activities (correlation), and a wealth of supplementary song games, Mother Goose rhymes, poems, and stories provide the teacher with strong helps in making reading (1) a worthwhile tool of use to the child in beginning his school work and (2) a magic key that unlocks for him the treasures of Book Land. See Incidental reading, p. xxiii. See Projects, occupations, and free-time activities, p. xxxii. See Supplementary song games, poems, and stories, p. xxxv. A teaching equipment of a most practical sort has been devised to lighten the teacher's burden. This consists of "three-decker" building and matching cards, word and phonetic cards, pattern sheets, puzzle games, and diagnostic tests. See Home-made equipment, p. xxxviii. C. REINFORCEMENT OF READING IN DAILY ACTIVITIES The day's activities in reading. The Manual presents a carefully devised procedure for carrying out all of the different phases of reading, day by day. It presents the following periods for a day, usually the first four applying to the forenoon and the last four to the afternoon. A teacher, of course, may arrange these for the most suitable times, but in this book they are given in this order. Children should not be kept too steadily at one type of work. For this reason it is well to have the reading periods frequent and brief in length. A ten-minute period is long enough at first, gradually working up to longer periods. A twenty-minute period is the longest that should be used in the first grade. The seat work period or free-time activities may run longer, so that the child can develop ability to put forth continued efforts. A minimum of ninety minutes per day should be divided among the daily reading periods. DAILY READING EXERCISES 1. Incidental silent reading at the opening of school. (Several minutes in 2. Project, occupation, or free-time activities. Optional. 3. Word study and phonics for word mastery and vocabulary building. 5. Group work drills, in which by beginning with the whole class, then 6. A review period, in which the new reading is given again with a re- 7. Seat work silent reading, in which the child through silent reading 8. Incidental silent reading at dismissal. A line or two for silent read- The basal (or minimum) work consists of periods 3, 4, 6, and 7. It is recommended, however, that the teacher put as much as possible of the whole program into operation. The work is planned to progress day by day. The eight parts are woven together into a unified and interesting whole. This work is given in detail for each day in order to minimize the work of the first-grade teacher who has her hands amply filled "playing mother" to some thirty to fifty youngsters. These eight types of work will now be discussed in detail: A. REAL READING PERIODS 1. Incidental Reading Periods Purpose. There are frequent opportunities during the day to use the blackboard to convey ideas or directions to a class. Two particularly good times are the opening of school and dismissal. Whatever is written on the board in the morning should remain there all day, exerting a silent appeal and suggestion to the children. The teacher should make occasions to refer to it. Each Incidental Reading period should be brief, limited to five minutes. At other times during the day the teacher can convey directions to the children through blackboard reading; as "Come to the class" or Go to your seats." 66 To make this Incidental Reading most effective, the following are necessary: 1. The children should be eager to know what you write on the board. 3. The reading matter should be written freshly before the children's 4. You should have a bulletin board. (a) Select a portion of the blackboard that can be spared and make it a spot of great interest, with a different sentence there each day and a changing picture exhibit. (b) Collect pictures illustrating new words to be taught with words written under the pictures. (c) Committees' names may be posted there. Class achievements may be commended. Individual achievements may be honored. (d) Use "What is on the bulletin board?" as a reading sentence put on the other part of the blackboard. (e) Allow a committee of children from the class to have charge of the subjectmatter on the board with the teacher as a guide. (f) References to interesting stories or rhymes may be put there. xxiv NEW READING AND REVIEW PERIODS Topics used. The following are used during the first year: 6. Months. (This is September, etc.) 7. Weather. (To-day is clear, etc.) 8. What a child saw. (To-day Tom saw a 9. Seasons. (Winter is here, etc.) 10. Descriptions of pictures. (Here is a pretty cat.) 11. What we did yesterday. (Yesterday we read about the Little Red Hen, etc.) 12. What we shall do to-morrow. (To-morrow we shall go to the Park.) 13. Our school. (Our school is Number 43. We have ten rooms in our school, - each day a sentence.) 14. Personal achievements of the class. (Mary read best yesterday.) 15. Reading groups specially designated. (The Gray Squirrels read well yesterday. The Kitty Cats read better than the White Mice.) 2. The New Reading Period and Review Period The new reading. In the Pre-Primer work twenty-five complete teaching units, or selections, are presented in simple, graded form. When the book is taken up, each day's work is treated in detail in the Manual. Methods for handling the New Reading unit are described on page xx under "Steps in Method." For games, extensively used for motivated drill, see page xxix. A teacher with a large class should adopt the so-called Group System and divide the class into several divisions according to her estimate of their abilities. The Group Work period a new scheme in this book — is intended to aid her in re-grouping as children improve or fall back. Provision should be made in the classroom for a first-grade library, with shelves set low so that the children can get at the books, and for a low table with chairs about it, where groups can read quietly or look through picture books. A resourceful teacher can make a start in introducing "the library atmosphere" in some corner of her room. The review. This is intended to be taken at a different time from that of the New Reading unit in many schools during the afternoon's work, in other schools, when there is but one session, halfway through the morning session. It presents the new words in a new situation or relationship, thus playing an effective part in impressing vocabulary; or it gives opportunity for dramatization, re-reading of familiar material, etc. 3. Silent Reading Seat Work Periods Silent reading of directions. Much of the Seat Work in the past has been motivated and interesting, and it has kept the child busy. But it has frequently been remote from the dominant idea of the daily reading lesson. This course utilizes a Seat Work period daily for interpretation of silent reading. The children make their crude drawings with patterns, and then crayon according to the directions put on the board. (See Twentieth Yearbook for interesting exercises developed in Detroit.) While the children are working out these directions into colored forms, the teacher may give her time to another class, if necessary. Near the end of the time she should walk up and down the aisles and by a glance at each child's work find out whether he read right or not. For instance, if she finds in Color the rooster red. Color the duck brown and yellow. that the child has a brown and yellow rooster and a red duck, she knows that he has read rooster and duck incorrectly or carelessly. It is well to keep a note-book of this Seat Work, for it is like "taking the pulse." Have a cheap note-book with a page for a child and mark in some way the mistakes the child makes. You can jot down weaknesses and give individual attention to them. At every fifth lesson the Seat Work is made in the form of a diagnostic test in which the children are tested in interpreting basal words of the week, given in directions. Diagnostic tests appear every fifth lesson in the Primer and every tenth lesson in the First Reader, a total of thirty-two. 2 yellow 4. bine 1 2 3 4 7 6 5 These test sheets should be regarded as official and preserved as a Reading Record of the child. If they are passed on to the next teacher they would give her at once an insight into a child's abilities and failings that it might take a month, otherwise, to discover. Some teachers may find it desirable for the first month to have a Seat Work period in the morning when the children can draw from the patterns and get their sheets ready for the later silent reading Seat Work period, coloring from directions. For the first and second weeks, you should concentrate on giving the children supervised direction in managing their hands. There has to be some time spent in teaching children how to handle patterns, for the little fingers are untrained. The real Seat Work period should not be consumed |