READING. The process of conveying to the mind by sight written or printed words o• sym bols. Almost as commonly the word refers to the vocal expression of that which written or printed symbols are intended to convey. Still more broadly, reading is used to designate the art of speaking to an audience what has been composed by another.
The oldest method of teaching reading and the one that has been most widely followed is the alphabetic or synthetic method. By this a pupil first learns to identify the letters of an alphabet with certain sounds, and then to group these sounds in such a way as to produce others which stand for mental images. In the sixteenth century Ickelsamer, the publisher of a German primer, pointed out that the sounds represent ing letters only confused the beginner when he came to combine them into words; but it was not until the latter part of the eighteenth cen tury that any other method was able really to establish its claim to superiority. Since then, the analytic method, usually subdivided into the Look-and-Say or word method and the Syllabic method, has been constantly growing in favor. By this, pupils are first taught to associate a mental image with a single word or combination of words, and only later to analyze these combina tions into their phonetic or alphabetic elements.
The reading book has been made a means of in culcating certain dominant national ideals and principles as well as a drill book. The tendency has been to use selections from standard authors, and to provide for unabridged selections, rather than for extracts.
Reading as the oral expression of literature differs from the ordinary reading aloud in that the expression is usually to an audience, and in that the speaker commonly recites from memory, instead of reading from a printed page. As an art it is to be distinguished from oratory, where the speaker deals with that which lie has himself composed.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Kelm, Geschichte des LcscunBibliography. Kelm, Geschichte des Lcscun- tcrrichts (Gotha, 1889) id., Praxis der Volks sehule (10th ed., ib., 1885) ; Laurie, Language and Linguistic Mdthod (Edinburgh and London, 1893) ; Hinsdale, Teaching the Language Arts (New Yo•k, 1896) ; Arnold, Reading, !low to Teach It (Boston, 1896) ; Bates, Talks on the Study of Literutu-r•e (ib., 1897) ; Stanley Hall, //ow to Teach Reading (Boston, 1397) ; Chubb, The Teaching of English (New York, 1902) ; Car penter, Baker, and Scott, The Teaching of English (ib., 1903).