2508
THE NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE.
[No. 82

bits of cardboard will be found useful in the early stages of word-building.

Great care must be exercised by the teacher to see that the pupils obtain the correct sounds and the correct means of producing them. It is necessary that the children watch carefully the lips, teeth, and tongue of the teacher when he produces the sound of a letter. Inability on the part of a child to give the proper sound is mostly due to the incorrect position and use of some part of the vocal apparatus, and it is the duty of the teacher to see that the child uses its vocal organs correctly. Short words of regular notation pronounced by the teacher and imitated by the pupils will provide exercise for training the vocal organs.

Teachers are recommended to teach the first lessons in reading from the blackboard, and recourse should not be had to the book until the lesson has been thoroughly mastered by the children. It is also very desirable that the child should, as far as possible, understand the meaning of the words that he reads.

The teacher should in all classes endeavour to secure expressive reading, and this can be done satisfactorily only when the children fully grasp the meaning of what they read. Even in the very earliest stages, as soon as the children are able to read single words, they must be trained to attach a distinct idea to them.

After reading a lesson, the pupils should be required to reproduce the substance of it in their own words, the teacher assisting with questions when necessary, and taking care that the answers are given in complete sentences.

Simultaneous reading should be used very sparingly; many advantages may, however, be obtained from silent reading, and if time can be found—for instance, during lessons in needlework—from the reading aloud of interesting stories. Teachers must bear in mind that their object is to teach children to read—not to read a particular book—and they should therefore endeavour to give as much practice in reading as possible.

WRITING.

6. Writing should be taught by means of blackboard examples, copybooks, and by transcription. The blackboard should be freely used in class teaching, not only for setting copies but for exemplifying and correcting mistakes. It follows that blackboard copies should be written with the greatest care. Teachers should pay attention to the correct position of the body, the proper holding of the pen or pencil, and to the exact imitation of the copies by the pupils. Blacklead pencils should at first be used in place of pens, giving place to the latter in the lower standard classes.

Good writing will, however, not be secured merely by formal copybook instruction. Children become good writers only by writing carefully at all times, and every lesson in which the child uses the pen or pencil should contribute to form good handwriting. The copybook will therefore not be regarded as affording the only, or even the best, test of handwriting. The judgment of the writing in a school will be based largely on the dictation and composition exercises, and not on the copybook work alone.

SPELLING.

7. Spelling is learned largely through the eye, and will therefore be materially aided by careful attention to the reading, by transcription, and by dictation; words of exceptional difficulty may be learned by heart. Practice in spelling, it may be added, should be given by written work alone, and not by oral work.

Lessons in word-building should be given from the earliest classes upwards, and should be so arranged from the first as to enable the children to master at one time groups of words of similar formation.

Transcription affords a natural means of teaching spelling. Care should be taken to see that the children understand the subject-matter, and that all errors are carefully corrected and the corrections learned. The best time for transcription is after the reading lesson: it will then serve as a preparation for dictation.

The object of the teacher being to prevent the child from spelling wrongly, dictation lessons should be prepared beforehand—e.g., the children may be told that their dictation on the next day will be from a given page of the School Journal. The amount dictated should vary with the power of the children to retain phrases in their mind, and the words should be dictated once only. It must be borne