One of the most disappointing conditions that present themselves in the administration of courses of study, in rural and city schools alike, is the decrease in interest in reading on the part of a considerable number of children in the fourth grade. One explanation is accepted quite generally — the advance in difficulty of the vocabulary of the reader for the fourth grade over that for the third grade is too rapid. Doubtless this is one factor in the problem, but not the only one. It is in the fourth grade that the remarkable increase in the number of retarded pupils becomes most noticeable, particularly among the boys. To the various subjects on which attention is concentrated, and about which results are tabulated, there must be added the selection of reading material that interests nine-year-old children. Teachers will contribute valuable information by making a careful study of types of subjects that arouse interest not` only in the brighter children but also in those who are beginning to lag behind their class. That a good teacher arouses children's interest in their work is conceded by everybody; but, on the other hand, much interest is sometimes a response to the teacher's manner rather than to the material itself. Silent reading is used by many as a test of the power to read, though the test may fall short of its possibilities by the acceptance of a word-for-word repetition of that which has been read. Occasionally a verbatim report, sometimes a repetition of sentences or phrases that pleased the reader, frequently the gathering up of the gist of the story or description, oftener the opening 6 The selections from Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, Emerson, Scudder, Trowbridge, Miss Cary, and Mrs. Thaxter are used by arrangement with Houghton Mifflin Company; "September," from Mrs. Jackson's Poems, by arrangement with Little, Brown, and Company; "A Forest Fire," from "True Bear Stories," by permission of Rand McNally & Company; "The Little Postboy," from Bayard Taylor's "Boys of Other Countries," through the courtesy of G. P. Putnam's Sons; "The Sugar-Plum Tree," from Field's 'With Trumpet and Drum"; "Kittykin," from Page's "Among the Camps," and "Old Pipes and the Dryad," from Stockton's "Fanciful Tales," by permission of Charles Scribner's Sons; "Robert of Lincoln," from Bryant's Poems, and "The Wonderful Tar Baby," from Harris's "Uncle Remus: His Songs and his Sayings," by permission of D. Appleton and Company; "The Fern Song," from Tabb's Poems, by permission of Small, Maynard & Company; "The Rain-Pool" and "The Shadow," from Tabb's "Later Lyrics," by permission of John Lane Company; "From the Apennines to the Andes" from Amicis' "Heart," by permission of Thomas Y. Crowell Company; the dramatized version of "The Brahman, the Tiger, and the Six Judges," from Marion F. Lansing's "Quaint Old Stories to Read and Act"; "The Singer and the Dolphin," from Charles D. Shaw's "Stories of the Ancient Greeks"; "The Settlement of Virginia," from D. H. Montgomery's "Beginner's American History"; and the selection from Miss Edith Kunz's translation of Johanna Spyri's "Moni the Goat Boy," through the courtesy of the authors. 8 |