Forward to Reading
- Author:
Barons,
Head Master, Woodlands Park Junior School, Tottenham, with a Foreword by Mary M. Mactaggart, Ph.D. Books I-IV. Blackie & Son Ltd. 1/6, 1/9, 2/- and 2/3.
One of the most marked features of recent reading material (for juniors) has been the appreciation of the fact that, once fairy tales have lost their hold, the pendulum of a child’s interests tends to swing very definitely in the opposite direction.
The fascination of the magic wand is displaced by the claims of the electric switch; the charcoal burner’s son fades beside his modern brother who keeps a petrol pump; and the young man who formerly set out to see the world and seek his fortune now joins one of the Services or enters commerce.
This change in attitude and the catholicity of interest which accompanies it, has been admirably catered for by a set of four readers just issued by Mr. P. A. Barons, a Tottenham Headteacher, who last year made a valuable contribution to education in his book Practical Suggestions for Training Backzvard Children.
Although in these four new books, Forivard to Reading, there is an encyclopaedic collection of factual information, it is so woven together that topics relating to geography, history, nature study, science, economics, commerce, citizenship and hobbies are presented as the natural interests of normal children, in so far as they form part of their everyday existence and the world about them.
An especially commendable feature is that the children, whose conversations and activities introduce these topics, are essentially human. They are in no sense ” infant prodigies ” of that nauseating type who once were wont to ask those conveniently stilted questions which were met so finally by equally limited answers. They are normal children who interrupt, make mistakes, get tired and do not necessarily find a subject interesting for the same reasons, or in the same way, as adults.
Tn other subtle ways too the author demonstrates how well he has used the experience gained in meeting the educational needs and natural curiosity especially of the Junior child.
Just as he offers a wealth of general knowledge, so he provides the means by which the gradual assimilation of that knowledge may be unobtrusively assessed, not, however, in the old, obvious ” test question ” form, but at the end of each chapter, in a series of suggested activities which ensure that the child has understood the topic, has added new words and their meanings to his vocabulary, and has appreciated the many links which the particular topic has with a number of facts of interest previously uncorrected in the child’s mind.
Each book is attractively, clearly and abundantly illustrated in colour, so as to break up the print and reduce fatigue, especially for the younger and the slower child.
Here again one does not feel that the illustrations are simply additions or embellishments of the text, they are very definitely an integral part of each book. The print itself is clear and bold, an excellent feature; sentences are short and expressive, a constant practical example to those who read them; furthermore both print and sentences are progressively, though almost imperceptibly, graded as the child’s skill increases.
Altogether these books constitute a thoroughly practical illustration and confirmation of the fact that reading is truly the fundamental “tool” subject; that the forging of this tool can be an absorbing and stimulating process, and that the child is indeed fortunate who learns its use and value by way of :?I, ” The Open Gate thence to II, “The Pathway”, and so III, ” Over the Stile “, to emerge IV, ” Into the Highway M. I. Dunsdon.
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