58 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EDUCATION.
obliged all his life to translate mentally printed speech into oral speech
oefore he can get the thought ? or ought he to be made eye-minded, and be
able to get the thought directly from the printed page ? Ought a direct
association to be made between the printed vocabulary and his thought, so
shat a stimulation of the visual word-center may directly arouse the idea-
sional centers and bring the thought into consciousness; or ought an
ndirect association to be made, as is done in current methods of teaching,
setween his printed vocabulary and his thought, by associating the former
irst with his oral vocabulary, so that a stimulation of the visual word
center by the printed page will awaken the auditory word center, and
through it bring the thought into consciousness by arousing the ideational
centers ? Should the child be taught reading in such a way as to enable
him to think in printed speech when he reads silently, or in such a way
as will make it necessary for him to translate mentally the printed words
into oral words and do his thinking in oral language ?
It seems to me there can be but one answer to these questions. In teach-
ing a child to read, the association between the printed word and the
thought should be made first, as is the case with all children who have
never had the sense of hearing. After this association has been made, that
between the oral vocabulary and the printed vocabulary should be made.
Oral reading, even if the thought is in consciousness, as is not the case when
such reading is mechanical, tends to establish and to intensify the associa-
tion between the two sense products—the visible printed word and the
audible oral word. Silent reading tends to establish and to intensify the
direct association between the printed word and the thought, provided
the association between the oral word and the printed word has not yet
seen made so firmly that the latter calls up the former vividly in idea in
silent reading. That is, silent reading will make the child eye-minded in
reading, provided he has not vet been made strongly ear-minded through
ral reading.
From this it would seem to follow that the first steps in reading should
oe in silent reading, and that it is a mistake to let oral reading precede or
accompany too much from the beginning the silent reading.
A person who is eye-minded in reading, and gets the thought directly
{rom the printed symbols, can read from two to three times as fast silently
as he could read orally ; whilst a person who is ear-minded and is obliged
to get the thought indirectly through the oral symbols recalled in idea by
the printed symbols, cannot read materially faster silently than he can
read orally. Rapid reading in the case of light literature is not inconsist-
ent with intelligent reading, and it does not follow that the silent and
indirect process of the ear-minded reader is a more thoughtful one than
the more rapid one of the eye-minded person. There are not wanting
instances indeed which go to show that quite the reverse is true, as far as
light literature is concerned.