PREFACE THE order of topics in the FIRST READER follows in a measure the order governing the kindergarten year, which is the universal order in its appeal to the natural interests of children. The early lessons are based upon the child's love of activity and are intended to accompany the sense games of the kindergarten, modified to meet the needs of the primary school. Appropriate to the child's progress there are introduced lessons based upon familiar games and nursery rhymes, which appeal to his dramatic instinct. These lessons afford the richest material for language drill. The words are very simple, and their sound and meaning are already familiar to the child. Moreover, the subjects offer ample opportunity for the repetition of the vocabulary without monotony. It has been an ideal throughout that the lessons should be as varied as possible, the vocabulary carefully limited, and the repetition of new words immediate and frequent. The review lessons are new in thought-content, and are reviews in vocabulary only. The ordinary review lesson of a Reader is isolated and heterogeneous, and has no element of newness; but here the vocabulary that has already been impressed by repetition in the regular lessons is used in new combinations in what is to the child a new lesson growing naturally out of what precedes. |