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