Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 08 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/221

Rh mechanical reading became a favorite occupation.

For an hour, or an hour and a half, they would sit still, clinging to the book which they could not understand, they would take it home with them, and actually in three weeks they made most unexpected progress.

With them precisely the opposite happened to what generally happens with those who know how to read.

It generally happens that a man learns how to read, but without understanding; in this case it resulted that the scholars became convinced that there was something to read and to understand, and that to attain this skill was required, and so they began to acquire fluency in reading.

Now we have entirely abandoned mechanical reading, but the matter is left as described above: each pupil is given the chance to employ all the methods he pleases, and it is noticeable that each employs all the methods known to me.

The first method, which is employed by mothers all over the world, is, as a rule, not a scholastic but a family method; according to this the pupil comes and asks some one to read with him; the teacher reads, showing the pronunciation of each syllable and word. This is the first and most rational expedient—no other can take its place ; and the pupil himself demands it before all others, and the teacher instinctively falls back upon it.

Notwithstanding all the means calculated to improve the education and to facilitate the teacher's work with the majority of students, this remains the best, and indeed the only, method of teaching children to read, and to read fluently.

The second method of instruction in reading is likewise very popular, and every one who learns to read fluently makes use of it. In this case, the pupil is given