Case 3: LITERATURE FIRST:
SENTENCE AND STORY METHODS (1883-1925)
By the 1880's, educators had become concerned with emphasizing understanding in beginning reading instruction. They were convinced that this could only occur by using sentential text in silent reading activities. In response, "sentence" and "story method" readers appeared.
Another important influence on textbook content was Charles W. Eliot, President of Harvard University, who attacked readers for their lack of literary merit. "I object to them because they are not real literature; they are but scraps of literature . . ." . His campaign significantly influenced the content of readers, which now turned to fables, myths, and fairy stories for the early grades, and more advanced literature for the later grades.
GAIL CALMERTON and WILLIAM H. WHEELER. Wheeler's Graded Readers: A First Reader. Chicago: W.H. Wheeler & Co, 1901.
This sentence-method reader states that "This little book . . . is to be read by the children and not to them by the teacher." (p.3).
SARAH LOUISE ARNOLD . The Arnold Primer New York: Silver Burdett & Co., 1901.
Arnold also demonstrates the sentence approach. A picture (a red apple) is presented to the class for discussion, followed by a printed statement on the blackboard: "This is a red apple." Sentences are then examined by words (apple, see), then examined by letters (a, s).
IDA COE and ALICE J. CHRISTIE. Story Hour Readers: Book Two. New York: American Book Company, 1914.
The methodology of this series is implied in its title. This is an early example of colored illustrations, for which a limited palette is used.
JAMES BALDWIN and IDA C. BENDER. Reading with Expression: First Reader. New York: American Book Company, 1911.
This series makes early use of full color for many of its illustrations.
CATHERINE T. BRYCE and FRANK E. SPAULDING. Aldine Readers: Book One, rev. ed. 1906; New York: Newsome & Co., 1916.
The story method undergirds this work, but it is one of the first readers to feature a "vocabulary" of words at the end of the book - to be learned as sight words. There are no longer any vocabulary restrictions.
CHARLES ELIOT NORTON, ed. The Heart of Oak Books: First Book. rev. ed. Boston: D.C. Heath & Co., 1902.
Norton was convinced that selection of content, not methodology, was the primary solution in teaching beginning reading. The aim of the Heart of Oak series was to nourish "the growing intelligence of the child...with selected portions of the best literature" (p. vi).
ETHEL H. MALTBY and SIDNEY G. FIRMAN. The Winston Companion Readers: Primer. Philadelphia: The John C. Winston Company, 1922.
There are no children in this "companion" primer. All the stories feature talking animals. The stories are rhythmic and repetitive. (Today we would call them "predictable.") The primer is an example of the story approach.
The Heath Readers offered easy, interesting, and carefully graded reading material, the "best and most suggestive pictures," and verses for memorization known as "memory gems."
GEORGINE BURCHILL, WILLIAM L. ETTINGER and EDGAR DUBS SHIMER. Plan of Work [Teacher's Guide] for the Progressive Road to Reading. New York: Silver Burdett & Co., 1910.
Teachers were told how to drill children on the recognition of words (by position, by comparison). Once these were learned as sight words, the guide introduced phonetics.
GEORGINE BURCHILL, WILLIAM L. ETTINGER and EDGAR DUBS SHIMER. The Progressive Road to Reading: Book One. New York: Silver Burdett & Co., 1909.
The Progressive Road series invoked the progressive educational movement in its title while using the "classics of childhood" as its texts. The first reader has nursery stories with repetitive refrains.
SIDNEY G. FIRMAN and ETHEL H. MALTBY. The Winston Readers: Primer Manual. Philadelphia: The John C. Winston Company, 1924.
The directions to teachers provide an early example of a whole word to phonics approach still in use in many basal reading series today. Flash cards were an important feature of this procedure. The directions accompanying the story of the "Little Red Hen" (one of the most frequently used stories of the period) instruct the teacher to teach the sound "p" from pig.
