From these three word cards placed on the blackboard ledge the children can pick out the one that reads best with the two other sentences, thus completing three-line paragraphs; as,

(4) There is a great variety of content possible in building the paragraphs. By mixing fronts and backs of all the cards a great variety can be secured.

How do you do

I am a little boy

I can run with you

The children delight in blending a variety of sentences by supplying from the blackboard ledge phrases and words that are suitable for the third line.

The Manual gives full directions for making repeated use of old cards in building fresh paragraphs.

(5) For quick perception drills, the cards are great time-savers.

Word, Phonic, and Phrase Cards. Full directions for word, phonic, and phrase cards are given at the beginning of each week.

See pages 99, 294, 297, and 426 for summaries of cards, word lists, etc.

Note. In holding cards for flash drills the teacher should take pains to see that she holds a card straight; holds it steadily; and holds it so that all the children can see it.

Home-made perception cards should be done in ink in preference to pencil because the latter is too faint. A lettering pen, one-eighth of an inch wide, can be purchased at a bookstore.

II. PATTERNS FOR SILENT READING SEAT WORK

Purpose. This Manual furnishes a complete set of graded exercises in silent reading, one for each lesson, which the teacher copies on the board for the children to use in a Seat Work period.

To make it possible for all the children to prepare their own work, individual patterns for the children are recommended. Children should be taught from the start to keep their own patterns carefully in a small box or envelope in their desks.

For the seat work the children take the cardboard patterns and draw around them, thus getting a drawing which they color according to the directions written upon the blackboard.

It must always be remembered that these are reading lessons primarily, not drawing lessons. Therefore, the means should be used that most quickly and correctly provides the child with the pictures to which he will apply the directions read silently. While in ordinary work we heartily commend getting away from patterns as soon as possible, in the case of this seat work we advocate sticking to them. Furthermore, no small accomplishment is achieved when the child's fingers learn to draw around a pattern quickly and accurately.

A teacher can at any time give permission to able children to make their own original drawings without patterns, provided she is sure that such an act will not affect the real object, which is reading directions.

Drawings from patterns may also be made at another time and not in the Silent Reading Seat Work period.

Pattern sheets.1 The following patterns arranged on four sheets of oak tag may be purchased from the publishers.

On the Mother Goose sheet Mother Goose titles are printed in very large black letters with several lines of the rhymes that can be cut out and used for matching with the pictures. The rhymes are printed in large type to be cut out and used as Mother Goose books for the class library or for reading aloud. The other pattern sheets also have reading material that may be cut up into "stories."

Jack and Jill

How used. A pattern sheet may be cut into the teacher's patterns, from which a pattern is then made by the teacher out of cardboard or oak tag for each individual child. It is better for

the teacher to make the patterns because it consumes less time, is difficult for the child and is of no real value in teaching reading. An older pupil may prepare them.

The patterns themselves have been evolved

from actual usage. They are conventionalized

forms which the child's untrained hands can use effectively. There are no sharp corners or hanging fragments that are easily torn off.

The patterns may be used by the children in making their own diagnostic test sheets, but this tracing of patterns should be done at an earlier period so that the child gives his whole attention to the test.

To meet the requirements of economy necessary in many schools the use of patterns in the seat work has been so planned that a half sheet of paper of the larger size will be sufficient to hold the group of patterns. Therefore, ordinary paper of that size may be cut in half and distributed.

Value and purpose.

III. DIAGNOSTIC TESTS 1

No argument need be presented in favor of the scientific test. It has come to stay. But an argument needs to be presented against the half use of the scientific test. In other words, giving a test and stopping with the mere giving is futile. The test of greatest value is the one that serves diagnostic purposes and is made the basis of "followup drill."

Thirty diagnostic tests are given in the course, in Seat Work periods, one each week during the Primer stage.

These tests serve five purposes:

1. They apply the Intelligence Testing idea to first-grade work.
2. They furnish a tangible basis (a diagnosis) for dividing a class into
.superior and inferior groups or for checking up on a permanent
division of a large class.

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3. By being planned for every 5th lesson, they give such frequent
opportunity for 'checking up" and for regrouping, that the
teacher can more readily detect where inferior pupils are weak and
center on correcting those weaknesses.

4. They release the superior group from unnecessary drill and give
them opportunity to progress at "their own gait."

5. They save the teacher's time and patience, as well as the children's.

How used. The diagnostic tests consist of sheets of paper 9′′ X 11′′ in size, on which are silent reading directions and outlines or figures for coloring.

Color the rabbit the mestral de the one that you ar Color him red or bevers

The test sheets are so simple that they can easily be made from patterns so that a teacher is not compelled to buy them in order to get their usefulness in her class. By use of the hectograph a teacher's sample sheet can be made as useful as a full set ordered for the children. She does not even need to have the sample sheet because each diagnostic test is pictured in the Manual, so that

she can lay her patterns on paper in the right position.

The teacher who uses script in her Pre-Primer work may copy the directions on the board if she prefers, and ignore the printed directions on the test sheet.

Only basal words of the week are used in a diagnostic test (and not all of these); therefore, the test is absolutely fair as a basis for division; it presents the minimum.

1 Furnished, in inexpensive form, by the publishers.

The teacher by a system of marking has the children record on their papers their individual symbols (or names), so that she can glance through the papers at her leisure and check the figures that are wrongly colored, thus getting for the individual child a record of success or failure and the exact spot of weakness.

These sheets should be preserved as the reading record of each child, for they furnish an excellent summary of his reading work of the year. They could be sent on to the next teacher with great profit to the class and a saving of time for her. They should not be destroyed nor taken home. They should be regarded as official. The other seat work may frequently be taken home to show parents.

The follow-up work consists (1) in regrouping a class to suit changing needs revealed by the tests, and (2) giving to different children the kind of drill most needed. The play spirit is injected into this work in such a way that it offers a great incentive to children to want to learn to read better.

Subjects of the tests. There are 32 tests for the first year; twenty-one for the Primer and eleven for the First Reader. They test two things: 1. Basal vocabulary - single words 2. Thinking power words in context

Several of the basal words of the week are used in each test, hence vocabulary is graded to the abilities of the class. The silent reading exercises on the sheets also furnish a test of the child's developing thinking power and of his ability to interpret words in relation to one another. The content is based on the week's words, but the form is a series of progressive exercises in thinking.

(a) Pre-Primer and Primer

1. Tests 3 primary colors and 3 geometric forms. Page 18.

2. Tests 7 colors, and numbers from 1-7. Page 39.

3. Tests color words applied to five basal words of the week, drawn as objects. In phrase form. Page 58.

4. Tests color words applied to five basal animal names of the week. In sentence form. Page 76.

5. The word color associated with five new basal words of the week. Page 94. 6. An alternative offered; omission of coloring of one figure, the test. Page 115. 7. Words of the poem in the Primer carried over into coloring of a drawing that illustrates the poem. Page 133.

8. Coloring directions applied to four objects and two people of the house project. Page 147.

9. Coloring directions applied to six animals now spoken of with the folk-tale names used in the story. Page 162.

10. Alternative offered, the Gray Squirrel doing one thing and the Bunny Rabbit another; a figure left blank, the test. Page 177.