THE 



NATURE-STUDY REVIEW 



Vol. 17 October No. 7 



Nature-Study and the Reading Lesson 



M. R. Van Cleve 

 Supervisor Natty e- Study and Elementary Science, Toledo, Ohio 



One of the best opportunities for teaching nature-study in 

 schools is in relation to the reading lessons; and for the very 

 obvious reason that much of the material in the readers is about 

 nature. It is so in the primary readers where natural objects are 

 used to base the bulk of the reading matter upon, and it is so in 

 the upper-grade readers which contain nature literature. 



Consider the primers and first and second grade readers with 

 their numerous pictures, words, sentences and paragraphs portray- 

 ing familiar animals and plants. It is evidently assumed by the 

 makers of readers that the children know these things about which 

 they talk and read. But a little careful testing by any teacher will 

 certainly show that many of the children, particularly those of 

 cities, have no clear percepts of some of these things: bluebird, 

 sheep, cow, frog, toad, snail, oak, spruce, pine, cedar, brook, owl, 

 eagle, spider-web, chicken, bee, wheatfield, daisy (examples taken 

 from a few primary readers). The chief purpose of primary reading 

 is doubtless to teach children to recognize and comprehend words 

 is it not ? Too often the child gets no further than the recognition. 

 Many of the words he learns are names of things . They are but sym- 

 bols however, not the things themselves. A bluebird is not a combi- 

 nation of eight letters. Neither is it just a flying feathered 

 creature signified by the concept ''bird." It is a throbbing ex- 

 quisite bit of life with colors and songs of its own which thrill the 

 emotional nature of anyone who has seen and heard it whether it 

 be on the occasion of the annual renewal of greeting or in the mere 

 recall of the image in the memory where like Wordsworth's 

 daffodils 



"They flash upon that inward eye 

 Which is the bliss of solitude." 

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