CHAPTER II.

I. SUITABLE INSTRUCTION IN THE ELEMENTARY SUBJECTS.

"No Merit grant is made unless the report on the instruction in the elementary subjects is satisfactory." (Revised Code, p. 15).

The meaning of "Elementary" (or "Obligatory") “Subjects" is given on p. 5, as referring only to Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic in Infant Schools.

A. READING.

This is the most important of the three elementary subjects in an Infant School :—

(1) Because it requires most time to teach;

(2) Because any deficiency in it, in the Infant School, is most felt in the upper departments;

(3) And because it is the subject dealt with in the most varied methods.

TIME TO TEACH.

(1) Unless the Infant Teacher's efforts be limited to the acquirement by the children of the vocabulary of a mere primer, and the parrot-like repetition of sounds, without reference to the laws of combination of letters, teaching Reading requires in an Infant School as much time as both the Writing and Arithmetic taken together. Much of what is called Reading in an Infant School is mere

Repetition. This arises from no inherent incapacity in the class, for by good methods the top class of an Infant School can be taught to read, with ease, comfort and interest, in a Standard I. book. The source of the weakness is the too persistent simultaneous method, which dins sounds into the children's ears, which they repeat from knowledge of their connections, and which they can render as well without as with the book.

Weakness in Upper Department.

(2) The teachers of "older children " frequently commence the teaching of Reading in Standard I. from a zero of knowledge on the part of the child over seven years of age, in the case of wastrels swept into school for the first time. When this is the case, it is not found that the Writing and Arithmetic are insuperable difficulties; but the Reading is always weak both in that and in the succeeding standard. In the same way an inefficient Infant School always stamps the upper school, in Standards I. and II., with weakness in Reading. And yet female teachers up to Standard II. are, as a rule, more skilful, patient, discriminating, clear in enunciation, and acute in hearing slight differences of sound, than males of a corresponding age. Because of this, the Infant School is really the most important department, and it is gratifying to find that the government, in its Merit Grant, recognizes the fact.

Varied Methods.

(3) The study of the art of teaching Reading is also more important than that of teaching Writing and Arithmetic, because Reading is taught by the most various methods in Infant Schools. When the children have already acquired a vocabulary it is of less importance by what methods the Reading is continued to be taught, as they already possess sufficient bonds of mental adhesion to

teach themselves much in passing from the known to the unknown, with occasional help from the teacher. But in the Infant School the method is of the utmost consequence; and every Infant Teacher should make a careful study of the good and bad points of the various methods used, so as to select or frame one for herself. These comprise― (a) The LOOK AND SAY;

(b) The ALPHABETIC; (c) The PHONIC; and

(d) The COMBINED METHOD.

Before referring to each of these in detail, some remarks may be made upon the Alphabet.

This is Script and Printed, Capital and Small; so that if all four be taken up at once, there are 104 (4 × 26) arbitrary signs to be taught. Moreover, each of these 26 visible signs, to take one series only out of the four, has a name and also a use or power; and the latter is sometimes very far removed from the former.

On which of these should we begin our mode of attack? The dame-school method commences with A, and ends with Z. This is open to the objections—

(a) It is not the capital, but the small letters that a child first requires to learn in order to read words.

(b) There is no law of association of sound, shape or use, to be derived from this order.

(c) Many of these capitals are at first rarely used.

Some Infant Schools commence with the capitals, because these can be formed by the children from sticks; but this is to sacrifice principles to mere mechanical processes.

The more logical process would be to commence with the small letters only (with the addition of I), and with only a few of these. The selection might be based—

(1) On similarity of shape. This, though applicable to teaching script letters in groups, is not so much so to printed small letters.

(2) The basis of classification might be similarity of sound; b, p; f, v; t, d; etc.

(3) Better still, the order might be made to depend on frequency of use in the formation of small words. This latter notion suggests that the short sounds of the vowels with the most frequently used consonants, should be first given. This course has one great difficulty, viz. the names of the vowels are taken from their long use. To overcome this some teachers call these at first the short a, e, i, o, u.

Imperfections of the Alphabet.

Every primer written by a practical teacher, and not merely compiled by a publisher's assistant, is based on some few fundamental ideas; and these should engage the close attention of the teacher, unless she is going to be content with mere "Look and Say."

The difficulty of teaching Reading consists, whatever method be adopted, in the fact, that the signs for sounds are purely conventional. There is nothing in the shape of the letter a which should suggest any of its sounds; and indeed, in different languages, different shapes are chosen to represent the same sounds. It is no wonder, then, that children fail at first to associate together such widely dissimilar things, as a visual and an auditory experience.

No one can be a good teacher of Infant Reading who is not deeply conscious of the weakness of the instrument with which she has to deal. This has been well pointed out by Professor Meiklejohn.

"The English alphabet is a specimen of every malformation that can affect a code of signals.

(1) Some signals mean nothing at all.

(2) It has from 2-9 different answers to the same signal.

(3) It has from 2-5 different signals for the same answer.

(4) It has only 26 signals for 45 different answers. (5) Of these only 8 are trustworthy.

(6) Some cannot do their own work, and they try to do the work of other signals.

(7) One of them (e) has about 20 functions.

(8) Some of them strike work unless they may work together (Ph; gh).

(9) There are altogether about 150 signals.

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It looks a very easy matter to teach 26 letters, but it is in reality very difficult; one has no idea on what one embarks when one proposes to teach a child to read."

Composite character of the English Language.

The difficulties of teaching to read the English language because of its irregularities, are due to the fact that it is a composite language, mainly made up of Saxon, NormanFrench, and Classic forms. The latter are regular in their pronunciation, being like the German, purely phonicsounded as they are spelt; but being names of abstract ideas, mental processes and relations, etc., they do not much come within the compass of a young child's life.

There remain the Saxon and Norman-French; but really there were three dialects of the Saxon, and instances of all three are retained in our pronunciation, which is quite as parti-coloured and mosaic as is the structure of the language itself. Thus the normal pronunciation of one in alone, only, atone, etc., is ōhn; but in one it is wun, borrowed from the dialect of the south.

These several Saxon dialects were subsequently mixed with modes of pronunciation borrowed from the Danish and Norman-French, and later from modern French, German, etc., so that we have at last a confusion of pronunciation that is bewildering.

If the alphabet were perfect, (1) each letter would be