THE EDITOR of this Reading Book knows from long and varied experience how difficult it is to prepare children for the First Standard Examination in Reading. This difficulty has of late years very much increased, inasmuch as the compulsory powers exercised by School Boards and School Attendance Committees have driven into school many children above the age of seven who can read only the easiest monosyllables, and some who scarcely know the letters of the alphabet. The early lessons in this book will therefore be found as easy as the later lessons in the 'Infant Reader '-the simplest and best known dissyllables being introduced very sparingly, and the ideas being such as young and backward children will most readily grasp. The lessons gradually increase in difficulty, and in the latter part of the book a few easy trisyllables, such as 'animals,' 'together,' 'evergreen,' and 'wonderful,' are inserted. The Editor has bestowed much pains upon the graduation of the subject matter, as children are perhaps more frequently repelled by unfamiliar subjects than by unfamiliar words. Such subjects have been chosen as are calculated to imbue children with the love of reading, and thus to encourage them to learn to read. The book, therefore, consists for the most part of simple moral tales, lessons in Natural History, many of them specially designed to inculcate kindness to animals, and simple, but it is hoped not unattractive lessons on such common objects as 'Coal,'' Tea,'' Coffee,' and 'Sugar.' The Editor has not deemed it advisable to insert questions on the subject matter of the lessons, as young teachers are apt to keep slavishly to the questions in the book, and experienced teachers can frame their own questions. Two or three hours' instruction from the head teacher will do more to teach the true art of questioning than an unlimited number of formal printed questions. Script Exercises and Arithmetical Examples have been omitted as not coming properly within the scope of a Reading Bock, |