The amount of time given to reading in the elementary schools of
Cleveland, and the average time in 50 other cities[A] are shown in the
following table:
TABLE 1.—TIME GIVEN TO READING AND LITERATURE
========================================================
| Hours per year | Per cent of grade time
|———————————-|————————————
Grade | Cleveland | 50 cities | Cleveland | 50 cities
————————————————————————————
1 | 317 | 266 | 43 | 31
2 | 317 | 235 | 36 | 26
3 | 279 | 188 | 32 | 21
4 | 196 | 153 | 22 | 16
5 | 161 | 126 | 18 | 13
6 | 136 | 117 | 15 | 12
7 | 152 | 98 | 17 | 10
8 | 152 | 97 | 17 | 10
========================================================
Total | 1710 | 1280 | 25 | 17
————————————————————————————
During the course of his school life, each pupil who finishes the
elementary grades in Cleveland receives 1710 hours of recitation
and directed study in reading as against an average of 1280 hours in
progressive cities in general. This is an excess of 430 hours, or 34
per cent. The annual cost of teaching reading being about $600,000,
this represents an excess annual investment in this subject of
some $150,000. Whether or not this excess investment in reading is
justified depends, of course, upon the way the time is used. If the
city is aiming only at the usual mastery of the mechanics of reading
and the usual introductory acquaintance with simple works of literary
art, it appears that Cleveland is using more time and labor than other
cities consider needful. If, on the other hand, this city is using
the excess time for widely diversified reading chosen for its content
value in revealing the great fields of history, industry, applied
science, manners and customs in other lands, travel, exploration,
inventions, biography, etc., and in fixing life-long habits of
intelligent reading, then it is possible that it is just this
excess time that produces the largest educational returns upon the
investment.
[Footnote A: Henry W. Holmes, "Time Distribution by Subjects and
Grades in Representative Cities." In the Fourteenth Year Book of the
National Society for the Study of Education, Part I, 1915. University
of Chicago Press.]
It would seem, however, from a careful study of the actual work and
an examination of the printed documents, that the chief purpose of
teaching reading in this city is, to use the terminology of its latest
manual, "easy expressive oral reading in rich, well-modulated tone."
It is true that other aims are mentioned, such as enlargement of
vocabulary, word-study, understanding of expressions and allusions,
acquaintance with the leading authors, appreciation of "beautiful
expressions," etc. Properly emphasized, each of these purposes is
valid; but there are other equally valid ends to be achieved through
proper choice of the reading-content that are not mentioned. There is
here no criticism of the purposes long accepted, but of the apparent
failure to recognize other equally important ones. The character of
the reading-content is referred to only in the recommendation that
in certain grades it should relate to the seasons and to special
occasions. Even in reference to the supplementary reading, where
content should be the first concern, the only statement of purpose
is that "children should read for the joy of it." Unfortunately, this
mistaken emphasis is not at all uncommon among the schools of the
nation. How one reads has received an undue amount of attention; what
one reads in the school courses must and will receive an increasingly
large share of time and thought, in the new evaluation. The use of
interesting and valuable books for other educational purposes at the
same time that they are used for drill in the mechanics of reading
is coming more and more to be recognized as an improved mode of
procedure. The mechanical side of reading is not thereby neglected. It
is given its proper function and relation, and can therefore be better
taught.
So far as one can see, Cleveland is attempting in the reading work
little more than the traditional thing. The thirty-four per cent
excess time may be justified by the city on the theory that the
schools are commissioned to get the work done one-third better than in
the average city. The reading tests made by the Survey fail to reveal
any such superiority. The city appears to be getting no better than
average results.
Certainly people should read well and effectively in all ways in which
they will be called upon to read in their adult affairs. For the most
part this means reading for ideas, suggestions, and information in
connection with the things involved in their several callings; in
connection with their civic problems; for recreation; and for such
general social enlightenment as comes from newspapers, magazines, and
books. Most reading will be for the content. It is desirable that the
reading be easy and rapid, and that one gather in all the ideas as one
reads. Because of the fact that oral reading is slower, more laborious
for both reader and listener, and because of the present easy
accessibility of printed matter, oral reading is becoming of steadily
diminishing importance to adults. No longer should the central
educational purpose be the development of expressive oral reading.
It should be rapid and effective silent reading for the sake of the
thought read.
To train an adult generation to read for the thought, schools must
give children full practice in reading for the thought in the ways
in which later as adults they should read. After the primary teachers
have taught the elements, the work should be mainly voluminous reading
for the sake of entering into as much of the world's thought and
experience as possible. The work ought to be rather more extensive
than intensive. The chief end should be the development of that
wide social vision and understanding which is so much needed in this
complicated cosmopolitan age. While works of literary art should
constitute a considerable portion of the reading program, they should
not monopolize the program, nor indeed should they be regarded as
the most important part of it. It is history, travel, current news,
biography, advance in the world of industry and applied science,
discussions of social relations, political adjustments, etc., which
adults need mostly to read; and it is by the reading of these things
that children form desirable and valuable reading habits.
The reading curriculum needs to be looked after in two important ways.
First, social standards of judgment should determine the nature of the
reading. The texts beyond the primary grades are now for the most
part selections of literary art. Very little of it has any conscious
relation, immediate or remote, to present-day problems and conditions
or with their historical background. Probably children should read
many more selections of literary art than are found in the textbooks
and the supplementary sets now owned by the schools. But certainly
such cultural literary experience ought not to crowd out kinds of
reading that are of much greater practical value. Illumination of the
things of serious importance in the everyday world of human affairs
should have a large place in reading work of every school.
It is true that the supplementary sets of books have been chosen
chiefly for their content value. Many are historical, biographical,
geographical, scientific, civic, etc., in character. On the side of
content, they have advanced much farther than the textbooks toward
what should constitute a proper reading course. Unfortunately, the
schools are very incompletely supplied with these sets. If we consider
all the sets of supplementary readers found in 10 or more schools, we
find that few of those assigned for fourth-grade reading are found in
one-quarter of the buildings and none are in half of them. The same is
true of the books for use in the fifth and seventh grades. Some of the
books for the sixth and eighth grades are found in more than half
of the buildings, but there is none that is found in as many as
three-quarters of them.
The second thing greatly needed to improve the reading course is
more reading practice. One learns to do a thing easily, rapidly,
and effectively by practice. The course of study in reading should
therefore provide the opportunity for much practice. At present the
reading texts used aggregate for the eight grades some 2100 pages. A
third-grade child ought to read matter suitable for its intelligence
at 20 pages per hour, and a grammar-grade child at 30 to 40 pages
per hour. Since rapidity of reading is one of the desired ends, the
practice reading should be rapid. At the moderate rates mentioned, the
entire series of reading texts ought to be read in some 80 hours.
This is 10 hours' practice for each of the eight school years, an
altogether insufficient amount of rapid reading practice. Of course
the texts can be read twice, or let us say three times, aggregating
30 hours of practice per year. But even this is not more than
could easily be accomplished in two or three weeks of each of the
years—always presuming that the reading materials are rightly adapted
to the mental maturity of the pupils. This leaves 35 weeks of the year
unprovided for. To make good this deficit, the buildings are furnished
with supplementary books in sets sufficiently large to supply entire
classes. The average number of such sets per building is shown in the
following table:
TABLE 2.—SETS OF SUPPLEMENTARY READING BOOKS PER BUILDING
Grade Average number of sets
1 10.0
2 6.3
3 5.1
4 5.5
5 6.3
6 5.3
7 5.5
8 6.0
A fifth, sixth, seventh, or eighth-grade student ought to be able to
read all the materials supplied his grade, both reading texts and all
kinds of supplementary reading, in 40 or 50 hours. He ought to do it
easily in six weeks' work, without encroaching on recitation time.
He can read all of it twice in 10 weeks; and three times in 14 weeks.
After reading everything three times over, there still remain 24 weeks
of each year unprovided for.
The reply of teachers is that the work is so difficult that it has to
be slowed down enough to consume these 24 weeks. But is not this to
admit that the hill is too steep, that there is too much dead pull,
and that the materials are ill-chosen for practice in habits of rapid
intelligent reading? It is not by going slow that one learns to go
fast. Quite the reverse. Too often the school runs on low speed gear
when it ought to be running on high. The low may be necessary for the
starting, but not for the running. It may be necessary in the primary
grades, but not thereafter for those who have had a normal start.
Reading practice should certainly make for increased speed in
effective reading.
The actual work in the grades is very different from the plan
suggested. In taking up any selection for reading, the plan in most
schools is about as follows:
1. A list of the unusual words met with is written on the blackboard.
2. Teacher and pupils discuss the meaning of these words; but
unfortunately words out of the context often carry no meaning.
3. The words are marked diacritically, and pronounced.
4. Pupils "use the words in sentences." The pupil frequently has
nothing to say that involves the word. It is only given an imitation
of a real use by being put into an artificial sentence.
5. The oral reading is begun. One pupil reads a paragraph.
6. With the book removed, the meaning of the paragraph is then
reproduced either by the reader or some other pupil. This work is
necessarily perfunctory because the pupil knows he is not giving
information to anybody. Everybody within hearing already has the
meaning fresh in mind from the previous reading. The normal child
cannot work up enthusiasm for oral reproduction under such conditions.
7. The paragraph is analyzed into its various elements, and these in
turn are discussed in detail.
Such work is not reading. It is analysis. A selection is not read, it
is analyzed. The purpose of real reading is to enter into the thought
and emotional experience of the writer; not to study the methods by
which the author expressed himself. The net result when the work is
done as described is to develop a critical consciousness of methods,
without helping the children to enter normally and rightly into the
experience of the writer. The children of Cleveland need this genuine
training in reading.
Reading in the high schools needs very much the same sort of
modernization. There are more kinds of literature than classical
belles-lettres, and perhaps more important kinds. We would not
advocate a reduction of the amount of aesthetic literature. Indeed, the
young people of Cleveland need to enter into a far wider range of such
literature than is the case at present. But the reading courses in
high schools should be built out in ways already recommended for
elementary schools.
The training, however, should be mainly in reading and not in
analysis. The former is of surpassing importance to all people; the
latter is important only to certain specialists. And, what is
more, fullness of reading and right ways of reading will accomplish
incidentally most of the things aimed at in the analysis.
The following table of the reading outline of the High School of
Commerce is a fair sample of what the city is doing. Note how much
time is given to the reading and analysis of the few selections
covered in four years.
TABLE 3.—WEEKS GIVEN TO READING OF DIFFERENT BOOKS IN HIGH SCHOOL OF
COMMERCE
Weeks to read
First Year
Ashmun's Prose Selections 9
Cricket on the Hearth 5
Sohrab and Rustum 3
Midsummer Night's Dream 6
Ivanhoe 11
Second Year
Autobiography of Franklin 7
Idylls of the King 10
Treasure Island 7
Sketch Book 7
Vision of Sir Launfal 3
Third Year
Silas Marner 7
Iliad (Bryant's—4 books) 5
Washington's Farewell Address 5
First Bunker Hill Oration 6
Emerson's Compensation 5
Roosevelt Book 6
Fourth Year
Markham's The Man with the Hoe 2
Tale of Two Cities 10
Public Duty of the Educated Man 4
Macbeth 11
Self-Reliance 6
When a short play of a hundred pages like Macbeth requires nearly
three months for reading, when almost two months are given to Treasure
Island and nearly three months to Ivanhoe, clearly it is something
other than reading that is being attempted. It is perfectly obvious
that the high schools are attending principally to the mechanics of
expression and not to the content of the expression. The relative
emphasis should be reversed.
The amount of reading in the high schools should be greatly increased.
Those who object that rapid work is superficial believe that work must
be slow to be thorough. It should be remembered, however, that slow
work is often superficial and that rapid work is often excellent.
In fact the world's best workers are generally rapid, accurate, and
thorough. Ask any business man of wide experience. Now leaving aside
pupils who are slow by nature, it can be affirmed that pupils will
acquire slow, thorough habits or rapid, thorough habits according
to the way they are taught. If they are brought up by the slow
plan, naturally when speeded up suddenly, the quality of their work
declines. They can be rapid, accurate, and thorough only if such
strenuous work begins early and is continued consistently. Slow habits
are undesirable if better ones can just as well be implanted.
To avoid possible misunderstanding, it ought to be stated that the
plan recommended does not mean less drill upon the mechanical side
of reading. We are recommending a somewhat more modernized kind of
mechanics, and a much more strenuous kind of drill. The plan looks
both toward more reading and improved habits of reading.
One final suggestion finds here its logical place. Before the reading
work of elementary or high schools can be modernized, the city must
purchase the books used in the work. Leaving the supplying of books
to private purchase is the largest single obstacle in the way of
progress. Men in the business world will have no difficulty in seeing
the logic of this. When shoes, for example, were made by hand, each
workman could easily supply his own tools; but now that elaborate
machinery has been devised for their manufacture, it has become so
expensive that a machine factory must supply the tools. It is so in
almost every field of labor where efficiency has been introduced. Now
the books to be read are the tools in the teaching of reading. In a
former day when a mastery of the mechanics of reading was all that
seemed to be needed, the privately purchased textbook could suffice.
In our day when other ends are set up beyond and above those of former
days, a far more elaborate and expensive equipment is required. The
city must now supply the educational tools. It is well to face this
issue candidly and to state the facts plainly. Relative failure can be
the only possible lot of reluctant communities. They can count on
it with the same assurance as that of a manufacturer of shoes who
attempts to employ the methods of former days in competition with
modern methods.
In this city the expenditures for supplementary textbooks have
amounted to something more than $31,000 in the past 10 years.
Approximately one-third of this sum was spent in the first seven years
of the decade and more than $20,000 in the past three years. This
indicates the rapid advance in this direction made under the present
school administration but the supply of books still falls far short
of the needs of the schools. A fair start has been made but nothing
should be permitted to obstruct rapid progress in this direction.