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SIGHT SPELLER

ADAPTED FOR

GRADED SCHOOLS

From Fourth Grade through the Eighth Grade
and

UNGRADED SCHOOLS

WITH

Supplementary List for Use in High Schools and for

TEST EXERCISES

LELAND STANFORD LING

ERSITY

BY

D. D. MAYNE

Principal School of Agriculture, St. Anthony Park, Minn.

POWERS & LYONS
CHICAGO AND NEW YORK

Take care that you never spell a word
wrong. Always, before you spell a word,
consider how it is spelled, and if you do
not remember it, turn to a dictionary. It
produces great praise to a lady [or gentle-
man] to spell well.-Thomas Jefferson, in
letter to his daughter.

TIBKYKA
TET VID SIVWO TIM
MMMERZILA

COPYRIGHT 1905
By

POWERS & LYONS

PREFACE

Notwithstanding the assertion made by one of our promi nent educators that the boy in the high school who is accused of being a poor speller should regard the accusation as a compliment rather than a disgrace, the great body of English-speaking people feel that accuracy in the use of the mother-tongue in orthography, as well as in composition, is one of the marks of even a fair education.

The problem of how to make good spellers is a very present one for the teachers in the schools. A few years ago it was thought by a number of prominent educators that it would be best to do away with the spelling-book and teach spelling incidentally in connection with the regular school subjects. In the schools where this plan, or rather lack of plan, was tried it was soon found that pupils regarded spelling merely as incidental, attaching little importance to it. Systematic use of the unpedagogic spellers now on the market is far better than this haphazard instruction given without a text.

During the past few years the subject of spelling has received increasing attention from educators and psychologists, investigations having revealed facts that can not help being of great value in making good spellers. These investigations of thousands of children in Germany, in Philadelphia, Chicago, and many of the important cities of Wisconsin, have shown with a reasonable degree of certainty the following facts:

1. In learning to spell, school children are largely "eyeminded;" that is, they obtain their percepts of the order of the letters in words by seeing the words in print or in script.

2. The ease of obtaining the percepts and the ability to reproduce them with accuracy are aided by studying the words in the form in which they usually appear in print or script, unmodified by separation into syllables or the application of diacritical markings.

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3. Good spelling is aided greatly by writing, and, to a less extent, by naming the letters aloud in order. The careful pronunciation of the words by the pupil has been found to be a great aid in correct spelling.

4. Very much better results have been obtained when attention was called to certain words of difficult orthography or when something of interest, either in pronunciation or meaning, was given with reference to the words.

Even a cursory examination of the spelling-books published within the period of these investigations will show that their authors either had no knowledge of the investigations or chose not to utilize it. If, then, the results of the investigations are not to be discredited, the necessity for a text-book in spelling which shall take into account the ascertained facts is plainly shown. To meet this necessity, the Sight Speller has been prepared.

The words are printed in clear, bold-faced type to appeal to the eye of the pupil, and there are no marks of any kind on or about the words to distract the attention of the pupil from their usual form.

Under each list of words, in smaller type, are the words marked for correct pronunciation. Here are also given such cautions, meanings, and facts as will call more interested attention to the words to be spelled. The diacritical markings are those used in Webster's International Dictionary, but there are no re-spellings, it having been demonstrated beyond question that such re-spellings are a frequent source of poor spelling, as they present an incorrect form for critical attention, the result being that the incorrect form is often the one which makes the stronger impress upon the mind.

The choice of vocabulary and its extent are among the most important problems in preparing a good spelling-book.

It is manifestly impossible to include in a speller all the words that are found in the dictionary, many thousands of which find no place in the vocabulary of the ordinary citizen.

Although much fault is found with the irregularity of our English spelling, it is a fact that the average child, acquainted with the common analogies of our language, will spell correctly

hundreds of words which he has never seen. The analogies and the phonetics of our language attend to the spelling of the larger number of words in the language. It is not necessary, then, to incorporate all of these in a speller. Neither is it necessary in a spelling-book to give special attention to the simpler analogies, as that is amply provided for in our modern methods of teaching reading.

There are thus left for the special vocabulary of the spellingbook only such words as involve some orthographic difficulty. What constitutes orthographic difficulty is, of course, largely a matter of judgment of the author or teacher, but some advance has been made on individual judgment by a comparison of spelling tests used in a number of cities throughout the country. It is found that certain words that are frequently misspelled in one city will present no difficulty whatever in another; also, that certain words which are misspelled by pupils quite generally are such as apparently should present no difficulty whatever. An investigation of difficulties in spelling was made at the University of Wisconsin under the supervision of the professor of psychology. It was found that the greatest difficulty lies in the doubling of letters. Then, in order, with the terminations able and ible, in ei and ie, in tion, sion, and cion, and in silent letters. It will be noted that prominence is given to these difficulties in the preparation of the lessons and in the selection of the words for this book. The doubling of letters and some other difficulties involve the rules of spelling. A single rule is emphasized in each grade, and a review of all the rules, with drills, is given in the eighth grade. It is believed that this arrangement will make the rules serviceable to the pupils.

In many spelling-books particular stress is laid upon lists of homophones. The spelling-book that places together the words ton and tun for the pupil to study and to distinguish is doing him a positive disservice. The word tun is seldom used as the name of a cask, and there is certainly no possibility that the pupils in our schools to-day will ever have any occasion to employ it. Until these two words were studied in juxtaposition there was little probability of ton being misspelled; but from this time forward every pupil needing to write the word representing

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