A Primary Reader

E. Louise Smythe is a published author of children's books. Published credits of E. Louise Smythe include A Primary Reader: Old Time Stories, Fairy Tales And Myths Retold By Children.

A Primary Reader: Old-time Stories, Fairy Tales and Myths Retold by Children

Excerpt from A Primary Reader: Old-Time Stories, Fairy Tales and Myths, Retold by Children This book originated in a series of little reading lessons pre pared for the first grade pupils in the Santa Rosa public schools. The object of the lessons was three-fold: to provide reading matter for the little ones who had only a small vocabulary of sight words; to acquaint them early with the heroes who have come down to us in song and story; and to create a desire for literature. It has been my endeavor to follow Dr. G. Stanley Hall's suggestions in his monograph, How to Teach Reading, where he asks for true child-editions, made by testing many children with the work piece-meal and cutting and adapting the material till it really and closely fitted the minds and hearts of the children. Various stories were given to the pupils; discussions followed. After a time the story was produced orally by the children. Notes were made on expressions used and points of interest dwelt upon. Later the story was either written on the black board or mimeographed and put into the pupils' hands to read. It gave great delight to the children to recognize an old friend in a new dress, and as interest was aroused, but little difficulty was encountered in recognizing words that were indeed new in their sight vocabulary, but old servants in their oral vocabulary. The spirit of the book may be illustrated by referring to the roast turkey in the story of The Little Match Girl. The story was told as dear old Hans Christian Andersen gave it to the little German children of fifty years ago. But American children have a different idea of the fowl which graces the table at Christmas time. The story as it came from the lips of the chil dren referred to the turkey, and goose was used in only one instance. As the story was to appeal to our children, the word was changed to suit their ideas. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.