Reading Matter for Second Grade

Elsie A. Wygant
1906 The Elementary School Teacher  
Experience as the basis and dynamic center of all the work of the children determines the subject-matter of their reading. But not all the most intense experiences or enthusiastic interests of children lie within any outline covered by history, science, and geography. Any hard and fast conformity to these subjects brings about that pernicious form of correlation which makes one hesitate ever to use the term, that is, the correlation of subjectmatter, rather than the correlation of children's
more » ... erests. Love of stories as stories which have no bearing upon either food supply, seed distribution, or the cardinal points of the compass are essential interests of childhood. Therefore stories, rhymes, and riddles are used in and out of season. The following have given much pleasure to one group of children. These are taken from Sing Song a volume of children's verse by Christina Rossetti. The book is out of print save in the author's complete works. Yet it is one of those rare, good things which should go on the shelf with the Child's Garden of Verse and Mother Goose. Mother Goose herself never took more charming flights than does Christina Rossetti in some of her Sing Song verses; but like the Rhymes of Mother Goose a culling process is necessary, because, among these wholesome childlike jingles, are some so morbid, so full of hopeless misery, that one would hesitate ever to put the volume, as a whole, before children. Because of this need of selection and the difficulty in procuring the volume a few are here printed. These will serve during the fall and winter as a part of the reading-matter for the second grade.
doi:10.1086/453561 fatcat:ewemnahea5fala7vfqjy2vwwzu