most words without the teacher's assistance, and much valuable time is thereby saved. Names of the taught. The names and order of the Letters not to be letters, commonly called the A, B, C, should not be taught at all in the Infant School, and may with advantage be deferred until the child, at seven years of age, is removed to the upper school. He does not need them in learning to read, and to trouble him with them at this stage will tend to hinder rather than to help him. Capital letters, for the same reason, need not be taught him in the earlier lessons, as they will be learnt incidentally in the Reading Book, without special teaching. Time Saved. The Phonic Alphabet, see Frontispiece, has been entirely re-classified, and though, from its greater number of letters, sixty-five, it may require a month longer to learn than to repeat the names of twentysix letters, yet it saves at least a year in the time requisite for learning to read. A child commencing on this Phonic method at four years of age, will have attained as much proficiency at six, as at seven years of age by the ordinary Alphabetic method.* * Two carefully recorded experiments, showing the value of the phonetic and phonic methods for saving time in teaching to read, are worth preserving. The first was that of a man twenty-seven years of age, a prisoner in Wakefield gaol in 1855, whom I taught to read on Pitman's Phonetic System, the schoolmasters of the establishment having considered it an impossibility to teach him to read on account of the dullness of his intellect. I gave him three lessons a week, of twenty minutes duration each, for thirteen weeks. At the Moreover the pronunciation, loudness, and distinctness of the reading will be superior. An experience of eighteen years in the Wakefield Lancasterian Infant School, into which this system was introduced in 1858, has also shown that when the children taught phonically are removed to the upper schools, there is a greater aptitude to spell correctly than in those who have been taught alphabetically. The Phonic Reading Book may be commenced at five years of age, and be read through twice or even three times before the children leave the Infant School at seven years of age. The Phonic method, combined with Defects Removed. a little knowledge of the mechanism of the organs of speech, gives the teacher the power of alleviating or removing many defects, such as stammering, lisping, imperfect trilling end of the tenth week he had read through the Gospel of St. John, in phonetic type, and was then transferred to the ordinary printed Testament, reading through again the same Gospel in the next three weeks. The schoolmasters then resumed his education, and, some months afterwards, in addition to reading, he had also learned to write well. The second experiment was with my own Phonic System, upon a child of two and a half years old, who acquired the phonic alphabet and 300 monosyllables by three years of age; about 1,900 words of one to three syllables in nine months more, when she was put into books for the first time; and at four years of age had read ninety of Esop's Fables, three chapters of one of the Gospels, and 200 lines of poetry. At four and a half the child could read books and newspapers pretty fluently at sight. This experiment took place many years ago, and no evils whatever have resulted from this precocious teaching. The lessons, indeed, were very short-three a day of five minutes duration each for the first six months, three a day of ten minutes for the next six months, and three a day of fifteen minutes each for the succeeding two years, the average daily instruction being little more than half an hour a day.-W. L. R. of the r, provincialisms, &c. In cases of cleft roof and other malformation, he will also know what sounds are impossible and must be excused, and what sounds are possible, and therefore expected to be correctly uttered by the child.* Age of Learning to read on the Phonic system is so easy and pleasant, and requires so little mental effort, that children of three years of age may be taught without the slightest detriment to their physical or mental health. Three-quarters of an hour's daily instruction in reading may be given to children of three years, one hour for four, one hour and a quarter for five, and one hour and a half for children of six or seven years of age, divided, of course, into three or four short lessons—that is, a quarter of an hour a day for each year of age. The Phonic Alphabet and Speech Sounds. We will now proceed to explain the Classified Phonic Alphabet on the Frontispiece. It is divided into two * In cleft roof the sounds formed in the middle of the palate are usually defective, as 1, n, t, d, and also those further back, as k, g (hard), and ng, while the consonants formed in the fore part of the mouth, and all vowels, ought to be uttered correctly. Stammering is easily cured in young children, but if neglected for years, becomes incurable. A middle-aged man at Thornes, near Wakefield, in order to save his life, had his tongue amputated at the root near the uvula. The operation was successful, and being a very intelligent man, he took great pains in acquiring speaking under the altered conditions. All sounds that were practicable to him, as pé, bé, m, and many vowels, he uttered correctly, and contrived a number of approximate sounds as substitutes for the impossible ones; and, marvellous to relate, he speaks so well that almost anyone can understand him. great divisions-consonants and vowels; the first three columns to the left hand being consonant, and the last three columns to the right hand being vowel sounds. The consonants are subdivided into explosive or such as cannot be prolonged; nasal; continuous, or those which can be prolonged; and compound. The vowels are subdivided into short, long, and diphthongs. Whispered consonants are in open letters, but in the large alphabets for classes are coloured red; while the vocal consonants are black. Short vowels are in open letters, and diphthongs in shaded letters, but in the large alphabets for classes are both coloured blue; whilst the long vowels are black. Whispered consonants are formed by forcing breath through small apertures at some parts of the mouth from the uvula to the lips; as s (a hiss). Corresponding vocal consonants are formed by adding to this whisper, tone produced at the glottis by the vocal chords, as z (a buzz). Therefore whispered consonants are perfectly simple, but vocal consonants are in their nature compound. The whispers s, sh, f, and th, become, when tone is added, z, ŝ, v, and th. The vocal tone formed at the glottis is exactly the same for all consonants, the distinguishing characteristic being the whisper formed in the mouth, and not the tone formed at the glottis. The same takes place with the vowels and diphthongs, the vocal tone being common to and the same in all, whilst the difference between them is owing to the varying shape of the oral cavity, lips, and tongue. Most of the consonants are used in pairs; that is, a whispered and a vocal one, as s, z,-p, b,-f, v;-but some few are used as vocal consonants only, as m, n, ng, 1, and r, and have no corresponding whisper; whilst one, the aspirate h, is heard as a whisper only, and is never vocal.* How to Sound the Consonants. The whispered consonants, p, t, and k should be pronounced like the last syllables of paper, water, maker, The cor when loudly whispered but not spoken. responding vocal consonants, b, d, and g, must be pronounced like the last syllables of robber, rudder, beggar, when spoken.† These syllables must be uttered very short, and it will be convenient to represent them thus-pé, bé, té, dé, ké, ghé.‡ Also the three other explosive, or non-continuous sounds, ŵ, ÿ, h, as heard in the words, west, yelp, help, may be represented wé, ÿé, hé. The three nasal continuous consonants follow, and are sounded like the letters m, n, and ng in the words maim, nine, and ringing. The s and ċ (a hiss), and ș and z (a buzz), have the powers of the s and z in size; the sh and * Much curious and useful information about speech-sounds is to be found in "Robinson's Wakefield Spelling Book," 198 pp. + In Webster's Dictionary the sound ké is represented at 7,000 words beginning with c, by 420 beginning with k, and by 508 beginning with q. At the end of words this sound is represented nearly equally by c and k but never by q. So that c may be considered the normal letter, k the next in importance, and q as least. The truer phonic utterance would be b', d', gh'; but in actual teaching it is more convenient to call them be', de', ghe'. |