A SERIES OF

SCHOOL READERS FOR TEACHING THE ENGLISH
LANGUAGE BY SOUND.

FIRST READER

WITH 4,000 WORDS FOR SPELLING BY SOUND.

BY

EDWARD P. MOSES, A. M.,

SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS, RALEIGH, N. C.

REESE

LIBRARY

OF THE

UNIVERSITY

OF

"The laut or sound method is a perfectly natural method,
and ought to be introduced into our schools. It is not the
fault of Sir James Kay Shuttleworth that the revised code
has so long pursued its disastrous course, ignoring or repu-
diating every principle of true education."-JOSEPH PAYNE.

RALEIGH, N. C.:

EDWARDS & BROUGHTON, PRINTERS AND BINDERS.

1895.

COPYRIGHT, 1895,

BY EDWARD P. MOSES.

PREFACE.

This series of school books is based upon the principle that children may be taught to spell and read by sound thousands of English words as easily as words are taught in German schools. The method has long been followed in schools under the author's supervision and in the direction of the education of his children at home.

The present irrational mode of spelling some English words and the unscientific methods often employed in teaching all our words have frequently proven an insuperable barrier against the acquisition of a knowledge of the art of reading by a large class of children who have not been able to go to school long enough to learn how to read with sufficient ease and fluency to gain a love of literature before they must leave school to engage in the fierce struggle of bread-winning. To change irrational spelling is beyond our power, but to pursue a scientific mode of teaching reading is open to all teachers.

The phonic method of teaching children to read the many regular words in our language should not be ignored because, in a comparatively small number of our words, "there has been a departure from the unitary sounds of the vowels." There are irregularities in some German words, but because of this fact no teacher would think of returning to such irrational devices as "the word method," "the sentence method," or "the alphabetic method" in Prussia, where the sounds of the letters of the printed words have been universally used in teaching reading for about three-quarters of a century.

The word language itself shows that it was to be learned primarily through the tongue by an appeal to the ear and not to the eye.

By the use of the sound method, a child learns to read through his own efforts, and thus, by becoming a discoverer, is allowed to gain the mental power that follows such a course, and is not deprived of the genuine pleasure to which he is justly entitled. Again, by the use of the phonic method, letters are used for the identical purpose for which they were invented-"to represent a sound or an element of speech."

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