ALIEN INTERVIEW - THE NEW EARTH - Earth Changes and The ...

Chapter Five
Reading Lessons
(MATILDA O'DONNELL MACELROY PERSONAL NOTE)
"I began the reading lessons with the first pages of a school book that had been used
to teach pioneer children in the 1800s on the frontiers of America. It is called
"McGuffey's Eclectic Reader, Primer Through Sixth". 40 (Footnote)
Since I am a nurse, and not a teacher, the language expert who gave me the books
also gave me an extensive briefing -- a course that took an entire day -- on how to
use the books to teach the alien. He said the reason he chose these particular books
was because the original 1836 version of these books were used for three-quarters of
a century to teach about four-fifths of all American school children how to read. No
other books ever had so much influence over American children for so long.
McGuffey's educational course begins in "The Primer" by presenting the letters of
the alphabet to be memorized, in sequence. Children were then taught, step by step,
to use the building blocks of the language to form and pronounce words, using the
phonics method 41 (Footnote) which involves teaching children to connect sounds
with letters. Each lesson begins with a study of words used in the reading exercise
and with markings to show the correct pronunciation for each word.
I discovered that the stories in the "First and Second Readers" picture children in
their relationship with family members, teachers, friends, and animals. The "Third,
Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Readers" expanded on those ideas. One of the stories I
remember was "The Widow and the Merchant". It's kind of a morality tale about a
merchant who befriends a widow in need. Later, when the widow proves herself to
be honest, the merchant gives her a nice gift. The books do not necessarily teach you
to believe that charity is expected only of wealthy people though. We all know that
generosity is a virtue that should be practiced by everyone.
All of the stories were very wholesome and they gave very good explanations to
illustrate virtues like honesty, charity, thrift, hard work, courage, patriotism,
reverence for God, and respect for parents. Personally, I would recommend this book
to anyone!
I also discovered that the vocabulary used in the book was very advanced compared
to the relatively limited number of words people use commonly in our modern age. I
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