The Silent Readers: Sixth Reader. Albert Lindsay Rowland
FOR ONE DAY
THE GOOD CITIZEN—HOW HE USES MATCHES
OTELNE, THE INDIAN OF THE GREAT NORTH WOODS
CAN YOU UNDERSTAND RELATIONSHIP?
GENERAL PERSHING'S WELCOME HOME
PERSHING TAKES HONORS IN NAME OF HERO DEAD
SILENT READING
The book which you are now beginning is, as its title tells you, a silent reader; that is, a reader that you are to read to yourself, silently. It is much more interesting to read silently than to read aloud, and it is also much faster. With all the wonderful books and valuable articles that are being printed every day, it is important that you learn to read rapidly as well as to understand.
The purpose of this book is to help you to read fast and to understand clearly what you read. You will find all sorts of reading; animal stories, poems, fairy tales, problems, descriptions of strange places, puzzles, war stories, and lots of other things. We think you will find it very interesting, but the important thing is to use all this material to make yourself a rapid and at the same time a careful reader.
Of course you are much too old to move your lips when you read. If you have this habit you must break it at once, for you will never read rapidly as long as you continue to pronounce words even to yourself. It takes just as long to pronounce a word to yourself as to read it aloud. You must learn not to do so, if you are to gain speed in reading.
Your teacher is going to help you in every possible way and will frequently time you when you read and then test you to see if you have understood what you have read. But you will have to do the most yourself if you are really to learn to read rapidly and well.
THE ESKIMO
You will be able to remember what you read and to tell about it much better if you form the habit of making a brief outline as you go along. You can learn to make this outline without writing anything down, but in the beginning it would be a good plan to write down the topics as you come to them.
At the end of this selection you will find suggestions for making an outline.
Suppose there was no grocery where you could get bread or flour or potatoes, no meat shop, no milk dealer. Make it worse and suppose there was no place where you could buy clothes, shoes, coal or wood, balls or bats, sleds or knives. Suppose you had to go without all these things unless your father and mother or brothers and sisters helped you to make them. You would all have to work very hard and even then be poor, and often hungry, cold, and wet. You could not live in town because there is not ground enough there to raise potatoes