PREFACE

The New McGuffey First Reader has been prepared in conformity with the latest and most approved ideas regarding the teaching of reading, and its lessons embody and illustrate the best features of the word, the phonic, and the sentence or thought methods.

While all the stories in this book are new, or have been rewritten especially for its pages, care has been taken to preserve the distinguishing characteristics which have given to the McGuffey Readers their unparalleled popularity and usefulness.

The gradation both in thought and in words has been carefully maintained, and the work provided enables the pupils to advance by easy and evenly progressive stages from the beginning to the end.

Only a few new words are introduced at each lesson, and these are repeated frequently in succeeding lessons until the pupils are able to recognize them without difficulty.

From the first lesson script is presented in connection with the printed forms of words, the frequency of its use diminishing as the printed forms become more familiar.

The sounds of the letters are taught, in the order of the alphabet, by appropriate exercises after the various reading lessons. The phonic elements and the common diacritical marks are learned one at a time and in a manner that is both natural and easy.