Excerpt from Some Phases of Reading in the Elementary School, 1919: Reprinted From the Series Published in the Educational Journal

Then, too, reading is complex in that the attempt to analyze a reading situation is not an easy task. To discover why a child fails in reading and to prescribe an adequate remedy calls forth the best skill which the teacher possesses; a task which is complicated by the truth that there is no panacea for poor reading, but every case, in a very real sense, must be judged upon its own merits.

The first step in studying a reading situation in the elementary school is to divide the problem in as many phases as necessary and then to attack each phase in a systematic and deliberate manner. In the present paper, I propose to discuss only oral reading, leaving a consideration of silent reading to a later paper. Obviously the first thing to do is to find out what sort of vocabulary children in the lowest grades have at their command. If the State Texts (free and Treadwell Primer, First and Second Readers) have been followed as basal texts, it is well for the principal to examine the children as to their power to recognize at sight the more common words in the vocabularies; of the several books. The Primer and First Reader contain word lists which the principal may use. Or the same words may be found upon the flash cards which the publishers of the series have for sale. In case some other series of readers have been used for basal readers, the word lists will be found either in the books themselves or in the manuals with which the publishers accompany their readers.

In all grades from the low second to the high eighth (b2-as), inclusive, children should be tested on that very obvious accomplishment, the rate of oral reading. All other things being equal, a child who can read unfamiliar material suited to his years at a standard rate of speed is a better reader than the child who just stumbles along. We have worked out very definite stand ards in this regard and the principal has here at his disposal an accurate meas uring rod. In my own work. I use what is known as Starch's Reading Test, Form A. This consists of eight selections, one for each grade, which the children are asked to read orally. These selections have been carefully selected from a well known series of reading texts and are admirably adjusted to the powers of normal children. For the sake of making this clear the first few lines of each selection is reproduced herewith.

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