LANGUAGE LESSONS AS A PREPARATION FOR READING LESSONS.
Two problems confront the teacher of little children in the ordinary
school-room. Children coming from different homes, with various training
and environment, do not always bring a common fund of knowledge.
Unaccustomed to the strange surroundings and the new _régime_, they
are not always free in telling what they know. The teacher needs to
learn the “contents of their minds” (as the present phrase hath it),
and this she cannot readily do unless the children converse freely and
without self-consciousness. Talking lessons, or lessons whose object
is purely to help them to free expression, so that they will reveal
their experiences to the teacher, are very necessary at this stage.
These lessons will have a further value if they help the children to new
interests, and to new knowledge. They will also be more valuable if the
teacher recognizes a definite purpose and forms a definite plan for the
lesson.
Again, the simplest reading lesson develops the fact that, inasmuch as
the children’s experiences have been varied, their corresponding fund
of ideas is widely different. Any new lesson may present ideas entirely
foreign to the experience of the children. The words which represent
these ideas, therefore, will be unfamiliar. This state of affairs
necessitates an act of teaching which should precede the act of reading.
For example, a class of city children in the West attempt to read a
story which deals with life by the sea. The sounding sea, the rolling
waves, the whispering foam, the rugged rocks, the shining sands, the
smooth pebbles, the brown seaweed, the white-winged ships, the brave
sailors, are unknown quantities to these children—entirely foreign to
their experience. Clearly, before they read this lesson, they must know
something of the life and scenes which the lesson portrays. The teacher
of children who live by the sea is not confronted by the same problem.
Her children have played upon the beach, have gathered the many-colored
pebbles, have built houses in the wet sand. Ships at sea are as familiar
to them as are the clouds, or the birds; while many of them have played
upon the decks of their fathers’ fishing-boats, and know the ropes and
spars even as they know their own homes. These children have had an
experience which fills the lesson with meaning. The inland children must
be taught in the next best way. Since they cannot go to the sea, at
least pictures of the sea may be brought to them. Shells and pebbles,
sea-urchins, starfishes, and seaweeds will tell their story of the
far-off beaches. Pictures of ships at sea, of rocks lashed by the waves
in a storm, will help them to imagine the conditions which their lesson
attempts to describe to them. But the wise teacher will make a connecting
link, in some fashion, between the experience and interest of the child
and the thought suggested by the story. Here, then, is the need of a
language lesson which shall introduce or explain the reading lesson,
preparing the child for the new thought, or recalling to his mind the
almost forgotten experience.
The everyday experience in every city school-room will serve to reënforce
this truth. Many a city child has never looked upon daisies and
buttercups. Brooks and fields and trees are outside his little horizon.
It is idle to have these children pronounce the words which stand for
these objects unless the words call up pictures in their own minds, and
this cannot be the case except as they have some experience with the
real things. It is not impossible to bring the flowers and the birds and
the trees within the experience of the children. No other work which
we can ever do for them will tend more to their future happiness and
growth; but, aside from that, no other work which we can do for them will
contribute so generously to their growth in reading power. They cannot
get the thought from the page unless the words stand for something at
least akin to their own experience, and our first efforts must begin by
occasioning the experience which is necessary to the interpretation of
the printed page. As a means to good reading, then, language lessons are
necessary for the purpose of developing ease of expression and freedom
from self-consciousness, and leading to knowledge which will serve as a
basis for the new thought contained in the lesson.
The subjects introduced in the earliest language lessons should be those
with which children are ordinarily familiar. All country children are
somewhat acquainted with the common animals: the rabbit, squirrel, cat,
dog, cow, mouse, etc. They know something of the occupations of the
people around them. They have watched the sunrise and sunset. They have
seen the boughs of the trees waving in the wind. They have been awakened
by the birds in the morning. They have cared for pet animals at home.
Many city children have had something of this experience. All need to
have it. In every lesson where these subjects are introduced, the teacher
should be assured that the children already know something about them. A
short conversation may suffice where the objects are already familiar;
where they are strange, careful lessons should be arranged. The cat,
rabbit, dog, squirrel, or mouse, can be brought to the school-room, cared
for, observed, studied, discussed. These language lessons will not only
give the children the knowledge necessary for understanding the lessons,
but they will endow the subject with new interest, and add to the reading
a sense of reality. Children who have been observing the squirrel will
read with great zest the lessons which reaffirm what their eyes have
seen, or answer the questions which they have asked, or tell some story
which adds to the interest already evoked. The reading thus becomes
an expression of the child’s actual experience or interest. It is no
longer a something which he does simply because he is told. He sees at
once the fruit of his labors. He reaches a goal which seems desirable
from a child’s point of view. He recognizes the purpose and meaning of
the story, and works to dig out the message which the sentences contain
for him. Everything which serves to make the lesson real to the child’s
experience, makes a permanent addition to his reading power.
A little careful study convinces us that there are two general fields
which all readers must explore. The subjects which appear and reappear
upon the pages of books have their source either in nature or in human
experience. When we teach the child to read books, we must also teach him
to apprehend that of which books treat. This teaching will necessarily
include observation of nature and observation of human experience. To
read “The Village Blacksmith” requires some knowledge of a blacksmith’s
work and its associations: the horse and his shoes, the molten iron and
its action, the sounding anvil and its use, the reason for the “honest
sweat” upon the brow of him who “owes not any man.” Knowledge of nature
and knowledge of human experience are surely needed in order to read the
thought in this poem. He whose experience is richest will obtain the
richest harvest from this field. Any act of reading will teach us this
truth with regard to our own experience. It ought also to point the
way for all teaching of children. A visit to a blacksmith’s shop is the
best possible preparation for a study of “The Village Blacksmith.” If
such a visit is impossible (is it ever impossible?), pictures and talks
may help to supply the need. The language lesson in the one form or the
other is necessary to the full interpretation of the reading. So of any
poem or story which tells of the life of the farmer, the miller, the
baker, the sailor, the fisherman, the shoemaker, the mother. The language
lesson which serves to make the experience real to the children helps
them to understand the reading lesson, and gives added power for the
interpretation of all such lessons in the future.
Such language lessons should not be considered as something added to
the school course. They are legitimate reading lessons, inasmuch as
they prepare for the study of pages which would be meaningless to many
pupils without such preparation. The teacher will of course choose her
own time for such lessons. Often they are given in connection with the
reading lesson itself. A wiser plan ordinarily is that which allots a
specific time for the observation or the conversation which is necessary
to explain the reading lesson. If the first period of the morning is
set aside for oral language, the subjects for this period may be easily
determined by the reading lesson, and selected to accord with and prepare
for it.
A few illustrative lessons appear in another chapter. They are intended
to serve as suggestions merely, for those to whom such lessons are to
open a new field. It is believed that in the majority of school-rooms
such teaching is already a common feature.
_And to get peace, if you want it, make for yourselves nests
of pleasant thoughts. Those are nests in the sea, indeed, but
safe beyond all others. Do you know what fairy palaces you may
build of beautiful thought, proof against all adversity? Bright
fancies, satisfied memories, noble histories, faithful sayings,
treasure houses of precious and restful thoughts, which care
can not disturb, nor pain make gloomy, nor poverty take away
from us; houses built without hands for our souls to live in._
—_JOHN RUSKIN._
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