his real life environment but rather substitutes for it a permissive reaction between the wishes of the teacher and the false environment of the child, which her attitude produces.

If education is as we are coming to believe, the process and not the result of this action between the child and his life environment, then the only way to get a correct education is for him to "work out his own salvation with fear and trembling." The teacher, meanwhile, becomes his confidante, his comrade, and her leadership must be deft and artistic, and not dominating. She succeeds in so far as, after inspiring a child to his best efforts, she ceases to guide the project and withdraws herself further and further from the child whose problem is progressing satisfactorily, and if it does not progress satisfactorily, a part of his education is lost if a sense of his own failure does not come to him. One's life is not all success but one's life consists also in facing discouraging results after a choice has been made.

This problem of the teacher is a far more difficult one than that of dominating a situation. She becomes, as she ought to be, the servant of the children placed in her charge. Her superior knowledge of life conditions-supposing she has them ought to result in wise council, but she should rarely make decisions for her children. Education, to be true, must be far more personal than we are now carrying it out in our grade schools.

To be the personal advisor of forty children is comparable only, in responsibility for the future good of the nation, to that of the ambassador, whose responsibility is carried abroad. The teacher's responsibility is carried in this little republic of forty growing latent citizens. Our country prospers if the teacher is big enough for her job. She holds the key to the future, but to unlock that door for the growth and development of a democracy is one of the most difficult jobs that a human being ever attempted. It is worthy of the best that the teacher can produce, and draws upon body and soul and mind and heart to the point of exhaustion.

Silent Reading

WILLIAM C. MOORE, SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS,

R

NEWBURYPORT, Mass.

Some

EADING is the gateway to all knowledge. one has said that a mastery of the twenty-six letters of the alphabet is the key to an education. Of course, that is only another way of saying that all information is stored up in written or printed speech. We all know, too, that from the time a child first enters the schoolroom until his systematic instruction ceases we are either trying to teach him how to get ideas from the printed page or expecting him to make use of his ability to do so. Learning to read and then reading to learn really constitutes for the pupil the formula for getting an education.

Teaching the pupils to read has meant in most schools making him able to pronounce with a certain degree of fluency the words of the book. We have in the past made little systematic attempt to do more than that. It is true we have expected the pupil to grasp the ideas for which the words stand. But we are now coming to realize that this is not all there is to learning to read. Oral reading, as this method is called, is seldom employed by people in general in obtaining ideas from books, magazines or newspapers. And as we proceed from the lower grades upward, oral reading is perforce resorted to less and less as a means of acquiring information from the textbook. Both the demands of the school and the habits or ordinary life therefore are compelling teachers to give some systematic instruction in getting ideas rapidly and surely by what is called silent reading.

The reading lessons of the earlier years, of course, are mostly oral in character. Reading aloud by the pupils is, in fact, indispensable at that time to insure the association between the spoken word and its representation. But even in the very first year silent reading finds a place. Getting the thought from the text in ad

vance of the oral reproduction inevitably improves the quality of expression, as every teacher knows. Therefore, as soon as the pupils begin to read at all, the careful teacher insists on their reading the sentence-long story to themselves before pronouncing the words aloud. One primary teacher of experience even goes so far as to say that the oral reproduction need not necessarily be in the exact words of the original. In allowing such liberty of expression the children in the very beginning of reading, she maintains, come to think of it as the getting of thought from what is written or printed rather than as the naming of certain words.

The place for emphasizing silent reading, however, is not in the first three grades. During that time the oral reading ability of a pupil is increasing rapidly. Every lesson brings him in contact with many new words. But these words describe situations familiar to him or are the names of things he already knows. So that the subject matter does not present many new ideas nor does it involve serious difficulties of meaning. The chief problem of the teacher during these earlier years is, therefore, the formation by the pupil of associations between sound and symbol and the development of his power to analyze words. And this problem is most easily solved in the oral reading lesson.

There comes a time, however, and this is usually at the beginning of the fourth grade, when the pupil is able to pronounce at sight most of the words in common usage. Then it is that his vocabulary begins to expand more rapidly than his needs for self expression. That is to say, he can now read subject matter in which words occur whose meanings he has not fully mastered. As a result his comprehension of what he reads begins to lag behind his ability to analyze and pronounce words. This, then, is the time to give somewhat less emphasis to the mechanics of reading and greater attention to interpretation.

Quantitative studies reveal the fact that the fourth, fifth and sixth grades represent the period during which interpretative or silent reading may be emphasized to advantage. It is then, indeed, that progress in that respect is most rapid. It should be borne in mind, moreover, that investigations indicate that the pupil's habits

in regard to silent reading are established for the most part by the end of the sixth grade. It is important to note, too, in connection with this problem that it is in the fifth, sixth and seventh grades that the pupil's desire for a wide range of reading develops. Since silent reading is the chief means by which any individual secures ideas for himself it stands to reason that the pupil who can read rapidly and effectively at this time possesses a tool of no mean educational value. All this, of course, points to the desirability and importance of giving due consideration to silent reading in the intermediate grades.

The problems of suitable subject matter and effective methods of instruction in silent reading have not as yet been completely worked out. The technique of teaching oral reading has received intensive study for generations and elaborate systems of classroom procedure have been evolved. In the case of silent reading, however, little has yet been done. While most successful teachers have always helped their pupils to get the thought from the text quickly and correctly their experience has not led to the general recognition of any fundamental principles. Their practice, when eminently successful, has been governed by the intuition of the native born teacher. What they did seemed to them so natural and commonplace that they have not thought it worth saying much about. Directions for the selection of reading material suitable for developing ability to comprehend effectively what is read and suggestions as to the way in which such ability may be most surely and economically developed, are, however, beginning to be formulated, and it is worth while for the up-to-date teacher to know something about them.

The right sort of material is the first thing to be secured. Not all reading texts, however, are suitable, for some of them have been arranged with oral work only in mind. Many of the selections contained in them are too abstract for beginning silent reading. Informational texts, too, are not suitable at first. Literature strong in the story element is the kind that holds the attention. Like older people children are interested in finding out what is going to happen next. The story must be told, moreover, in language.

easy for the child to understand. Otherwise he will have to give undue consideration to words as units instead of thinking in whole sentences, and so long as the mental effort deals with individual words little or no power for absorbing the thought will come. Selections full of rapid, definite action, expressed in a simple vocabulary, must, therefore, be chosen for the early work in silent reading.

Stories and descriptive narratives adapted for the oral work of the second and third grades may be used to advantage in developing silent reading in the fourth and fifth grades. There will then be no necessity for pausing to analyze difficult words for they will all be old friends. Nor will the pupils need to ponder over the meaning. The eyes will, therefore, take in large units at a glance. As soon, moreover, as the pupil learns that certain words in the paragraph are of more value to him than others in getting the thought he will begin to search for these. He will see the other words and get their significance but he will not waste time in conning them over, one by one. The reading then will tend to become the interpretation of thought rather than the calling of words.

Silent reading may be approached in the latter part of the third grade or beginning of the fourth by having the pupils use some suitable story book in the following way. Let them first read the book through orally, a page or two at a time, attempting to reproduce it as they go along. This sort of a lesson is for practice in thought getting. No part of it should be devoted to phonic drill or to technical work of any kind. In fact, the vocabulary should be easy enough to make that unnecessary. When the book has been read in this manner it may be laid aside for a few weeks while the regular oral work goes on. Then it may be brought out again and the interpretation attempted a couple of pages at a time with no preliminary oral reading.

In the intermediate and upper grammar grades no preparatory oral reading should be necessary. A story of a few pages only may be selected for the first attempt at silent reading and the oral reproduction of the main points required after a few minutes' study. As the pupils begin to understand what is expected of them