The approach to word study for the young child should be by four simple steps:

See the word.

Say the word.

Build the word.

Feel the word.

Perhaps the major factor for the successful practice of these four steps to seeing, knowing, and understanding words is the use of the imagination in the everyday realm of the obvious. The practice will divide the story or reading time quite naturally into two parts: (1) Reading for study and learning, and (2) Reading for pleasure and excitement. It is significant that these divisions be impressed upon the child, for many children go from drill to drudgery in reading and never truly become aware of its pleasure and excitement. Note the sentences:

"Dick and Jane were unable to climb the green tree. All the boughs were too high for them to reach. So the two went to borrow Mr. Greene's stepladder."

Thanks to the eternal patience and the enduring qualities of the teacher at school, most of the spade work will have been done. The work at home will reassure the child and also make learning a personal thing. That the teacher cannot give each of her twenty-five youngsters individual attention is no fault of hers; nevertheless, it can result in a malignant indifference to learning on the part of the child.

Now it is time to put: that most important factor--use of the imagination on the obvious--to work on Dick and Jane. What is imagination? Imagination is looking with the mind rather than with the eyes. It is not to be confused with daydreaming, for daydreaming is "conjuring up" rather than seeing. Your child will not fully appreciate the difference now, but it is worth coming back to later.

People who see the patterns of words, the patterns of leaves, the patterns of color, are those lucky ones who see with their minds. This is their trade secret--and for a child to develop the ability to handle all patterns of learning, it is a must. The mental picture must be formed. When this is done the hands can manage the mechanics without difficulty--they are only tracing images, they no longer have to create out of utter blindness.

As the child reads about Dick and Jane, potential trouble-makers should be studied carefully. Let him start by seeing the words:

unable, climb, green, boughs borrow, step, ladder

Across the room there will be a spot for mental pictures, above a picture on the wall, along the top of a door frame, against the back of a chair. Here the child will look away from unable on the page and see unable, for the un is the troublesome spot and therefore is the part to be emphasized. As Un able is seen on the wall or door frame, it is said un able. The thinking is already in process, and the mental picture produces a positive feeling (I am able to spell un able), and the word is built. Climb becomes climB against the back of the chair, and consequently will never be dime on a composition to horrify an eighth grade teacher. Green is always the color, but Mr. Greene may sometimes be Mr. Green. Boughs endangers even the imagination and must be a big BOUGHS. Borrow becomes borRow. Step is stEP, and never steep, for stEEP is two EE's and probably also at least two steps up. And ladder, following the pattern of borRow, becomes LadDer. Then there are the troublesome to's, too's, and two's. To on the wall is to BE--to DO: too becomes too MUCH--too LITTLE, and two is two PEOPLE--2.

The bright child who misSPelled realLY on the eighth test missed these simple practices. It is never too late to do them, but the soONER they are done the more pleAsure they will afFord. It is quite exciting to watch a nine year old child pause briEFLY on a sentence in the book he is reading: "Thomas Jonathan (Stonewall) Jackson was born in the upper Monongahela country of what was, in 1824, still a part of the state of Virginia." The watcher comments casUalLY that MoNONgaHEla is an Indian name. Three days later, walking along the street, the child is asked: Where was Jackson born? (Right.) How do you spell it? (Monongahela.) Yes, it can be very exciting to see patterns take form which will endure as foundation stones in an ever-growing tower of achievement. Five years from now when your child is asked to write Tutankhamen as the answer to a question on the history examination, he will see TutanKHAMen carved on the wall of a tomb in his imagination, and he will spell the answer correctly. (And from this moment forth the child's parent will be sure of the spelling of Tutankhamen also.)

Perhaps it might be mentioned here that it is seldom necessary for parents to bother themselves with elaborate equipment such as flash cards, charts, work sheets, progress graphs, etc. These are used in the school most efficiently by the teacher who is well trained to get the most out of them. The major equipment needed for help in the home is twenty minutes a day, the patience to dwell upon the simple, and the ability to imagine the obvious. A few books, other than the regular schoolbooks, will be helpful as the child progresses. He will want to mark and underline, and this is usually prohibited in publicly owned textbooks.

saying the word follows close upon the heels of seeing the word. Here again, the few profitable minutes devoted to this practice at home will be complementing and giving lasting meaning to the many tiring hours of drill already put in by the teacher at school. As a matter of fact, except for the saying of the word for purposes of correct spelling, the recognition of the vowels--a, e, i, o, u--and the use of the most simple rules for dividing words into syllables, the parent will tread lightly in this direction. The parent will rely on the teacher to direct the child through the myriad side roads of confusion and exceptions to the rule. Note the confusion presented by the following sentence:

Correct Spelling: The boy has a pencil.

Literal Pronunciation: Thee boy has ay pencil.

Actual Pronunciation: Thuh boi haz uh pensel.

Before the problems which attend the saying of the word are passed over and left entirely to the teacher, let's at least undertake the six simplest rules for the division of words into syllables. First of all, the child can be told what a syllable is.

A syllable is a part of a word that makes one sound-division of the word. If the child has studied any music, a comparison of a syllable and a musical note will bring out the meaning. It might be well also to introduce the terms mono-syllabic (mono--meaning one, thus, the monosyllable is a one syllable word, and mono-syllabic means one sound); and poly-syllabic (poly--meaning many, thus two sounds or more). In poly-syllabic words one syllable (sound) is emphasized more than others, and that we call accenting the word. The dictionary divides words into syllables and puts an accent mark (un a' ble) over the syllable which is given more sound than the others.

Even the six simplest rules for the division of words into syllables are not conclusive; they have many exceptions:

There are as many syllables in a word as there are vowels, except when two vowels are sounded as one or when the final e is silent. Examples: bough, green, were.

Where separation into syllables takes place, the division generally comes just before a consonant, but the exceptions are many and important enough to become rules in themselves. Examples: secret, so-Jo, table, re-ward.

If the first syllable of a word is accented, a consonant is usually attached to it rather than with the syllable which follows. Examples: pal'-ace, tet'-a-nus, ten'-ure.

In many words the syllabic division will separate consonants if they cannot be blended in speaking. Examples: pic-nic, al-fal-fa, sal-vo.

When double consonants occur in a word, the syllabic division splits them. Examples: oc-cur, col-lege, sil-ly, syl-la-ble.

When parts (prefixes and suffixes) are added to words, they remain separate syllables. Examples: re-turn, re-turning; form, in-form; large, en-large, largely.

A valuable tool to which the child should be introduced during the first years of school is the dictionary. It is advisable to start with a junior edition. The very weight of the good regular editions handicaps the child. In the study of saying the word, the parent is provided with the ideal time to not only introduce the dictionary, but put it into continued used. Its parts should be explained, and an understanding of its value can be made permanent by having the child try to figure out how we would manage words if, suddenly, all the dictionaries were collected and burned. Here again is the use of imagination in the realm of the obvious, a field so productive for the young mind. The New Webster's Elementary is a workable dictionary for use during most or all of elementary school. It has 38,000 words, simplified introductory material for proper use, rules for spelling and punctuation, and much larger print than most dictionaries. It would be a worth-while investment for any parent. Every child likes to own books, and here is a book he will use.

building the word uses all the patterns of sight and sound carried over from seeing and saying, and the child who has learned the fundamentals of these will build with a satisfactory degree of success. However, there are additional interests and one or two important rules which should be noted.