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Background for the Psychology of Reading
By William Henry Gray
New York: Prentice Hall, Inc. 1938 The practice of reading
appears to be as old as civilization. Written records,
discovered in Babylonia and Egypt, have been proved to be no
less than six or seven thousand years old. The existence of
these records indicates that reading and civilization were then
by no means in their infancy.
The evolution of the
alphabet.1 A study of written records preserved
from remote ages indicates that, although various peoples and
tribes on every continent have developed systems of writing
independently, each system, in so far as it has evolved,
resembles almost every other in the general lines of its
development. The evolution of reading and writing as we know
them today appears to have gone through the pictograph stage,
the ideograph stage, the phonogram stage, the rebus-phonogram
stage, and the alphabet stage.
In the early pictograph stage,
pictures were drawn in pantomime and read as fast as drawn. They
constituted a gesture language. The transition from fashioning
pictures in the air to drawing them in sand, on trees, rocks,
bark, and other materials must have been easily accomplished. At
first the pictures were sketches directly portraying objects to
be found in the environment and were made to represent some
event in the life of the producer. For example, a hunter out of
food might scratch upon a stick the picture-story of his
destitution and thrust the stick in the ground on the trail
nearest his dwelling.
In the ideograph stage,
pictures began to be employed to represent not merely objects of
sense, but emotions, ideas, and feelings. For example, among the
American Indians the idea of combat came to be symbolized by two
spearheads pointed against each other; peace, by a pipe; and
war, by a tomahawk.
In the phonogram stage,
pictures took on more and more abstract meaning. Among the
Egyptians, for example, the ostrich feather came to serve as the
symbol for justice, a roll of papyrus came to mean knowledge,
the figure of a calf running towards water meant thirst, and a
brandished whip was the symbol of power.
The fourth, or
rebus-phonogram, stage occurred when words and phrases began to
be expressed by pictures of objects whose names resemble the
words or syllables of which they are composed. For example, a
word of several syllables could be represented by a succession
of characters, each of which represented one of the syllables.
Thus, in Egyptian, a figure on a seat, hes, with the
character for eye, iri, stood for Hesiri, the name of one
of their gods. This rebus-phonogram stage, as it is called, can
be made to represent sentences as well as words by a series of
pictures, each of which stands for one word of the sentence.
Thus, pictures of an eye, a
saw, a boy, a swallow, a goose, and a berry may represent the
sentence, "I saw a boy swallow a gooseberry." The
analyzing of syllables into their constituent sounds, and the
representing of each of these sounds by a separate character,
marks the fifth and final stage in the evolution of the
alphabet. Many peoples carried their development of writing no
further than the rebus-phonogram stage, but the Egyptians went
further, and analyzed the syllable into letter sounds-into
vowels and consonants.
At first they [the Egyptians]
had an alphabet of 45 characters, sometimes having two or three
characters for the same sound. Later there was further
simplification, until the Egyptian alphabet consisted of but 25
letters. The Egyptians, however, never did away with the use of
ideographs and syllabic signs. Words were spelled out
alphabetically and a needless syllabic sign was added, followed
by an unnecessary ideogram.
From the alphabet of the
Egyptians and that of the early Greek civilization, the
Phoenicians fashioned their alphabet, changing and perhaps
borrowing characters as needed. The Phoenician alphabet was
adopted by the later Greek civilization and was further modified
so that superfluous characters were given new uses and the vowel
sounds were represented by separate letters. The Romans adopted
a form of the Greek alphabet, and, after certain modifications,
the Roman alphabet became the vehicle of culture throughout
western Europe. The English printers borrowed a beautiful script
from the Italians, which, in a modified form, gives to us a set
of symbols that are easier to read and more convenient to use
than any other forms.
The evolution of the
printed page.2 In the earliest stages of
pictography there was no fixed order of reading, but, as picture
writing developed and became more definite, it took on a serial
order. This serial order came to have habitual directions which
tended to become fixed for any given system. The Egyptian
hieroglyphics were sometimes arranged in horizontal lines, and
sometimes in vertical columns. The order of reading was in the
opposite direction to that in which the heads of the animals
pointed. There was no fixed rule as to the direction in which
the symbols were to be written.
The Hittites read from right
to left, returning from left to right. The Semitic writing, in
general, was from right to left. Early Greek reading was from
right to left in each line. Later their reading came to be in
the same order as that of the Hittites, and the characters faced
in the direction in which the reading was to be done. Still
later their reading came to be from left to right in the first
line, returning from right to left. Finally the habit prevailed
of writing and reading all lines from left to right. This order
was followed by the Romans and, as a result, was adopted in our
own language.
For many centuries after
writing had first been used there was nothing to indicate the
pauses, or to divide a book into sentences. No attempt to
punctuate is apparent in the earlier manuscripts and
inscriptions of the Greeks. It was in Alexandria that
punctuation originated, when that city was the center of ancient
learning. The open space to the left of a line, which indicates
the beginning of a paragraph, made its appearance on papyri at
Alexandria.
The early signs intended for
punctuation were used at first in poetry only, to enable readers
to comprehend the meaning hidden in obsolete words and in
involved and difficult verses. It was not until after the ninth
century A. D. that the division of written material by period,
colon, and semicolon marks took place. The comma was the same as
today; a large dot or double dot indicated the full stop, and a
high dot stood for a colon or semicolon.
The modern book had its
beginnings in the wooden, wax-coated tablets which were used
from the earliest times in Greece and Rome for literary
composition, school exercises, accounts, and the like. Two or
more tablets would be fastened together by ring hinges at the
side, the raised margins of the tablet protecting the writing
from being erased. Little booklets of tablets, called codices,
came into very general use by the Romans for correspondence,
legal documents, and the like.
These were later replaced by
codices composed of vellum sheets. Later still, papyrus was used
as well as vellum. Paper, although known to the Chinese at a
very remote date, was not introduced into Europe until the
eighth century, and came from the Arabs. It was not until the
fifteenth century, however, that paper gradually replaced
vellum.
The early books were, of
course, made and written by hand. The Chinese were the first
printers. Printing from blocks and clay tablets was practiced in
China as early as 50 B. C.; printing from movable type was first
done by Pi Sheng in China in the years 1041 to 1049. In printing
from blocks, all the words on the page of a book were cut by
hand on a solid block of wood.
The great discovery was that
of forming every letter or character of the alphabet separately,
so as to be able to rearrange and form in succession all the
words, lines, and pages of a work, thereby avoiding the labor of
cutting new blocks for every page. There is no certainty as to
the actual date of the European invention of printmg from
movable type, which was independent of the discovery of the
principle by the Chinese, but it is assumed that it was produced
about 1440.
As the result of the invention
of printing and the general use of paper, reading matter
increased greatly, and reading and the reading habit have become
practically universal in all civilized countries.
Aims in teaching reading.3
The religious motive was the one that controlled reading
instruction when our early colonists migrated to America. Many
of the colonies were established through the zeal of those who
sought freedom of religious worship. The religious motive was
the all-controlling force in colonists' lives; hence it is quite
natural that one should find it permeating and directing the
instruction in their schools.
By the latter part of the
eighteenth century the vivid-ness of the early strife for
religious freedom had been replaced by the new struggle for
political freedom, and reading content now had several new
functions to perform: that of purifying the American language;
that of developing loyalty to the new nation; and that of
inculcating the high ideals of virtue and of moral behavior
which were considered so necessary a part of the general program
for building good citizenship.
By 1850, owing to the
Pestalozzian principles of education which were invading our
system, we find reading being taught as a means of obtaining
general information. Educators came to realize that the success
of the new democracy depended not so largely upon instilling
patriotic sentiment as upon developing the intelligence of the
great mass of common people whose ballots were to choose the
leaders and determine the policies of this democracy.
Sometime around the 1880's a
new movement began in the field of reading instruction. This
movement was the result of an emphasis upon the use of reading
as a medium for awakening permanent interest in literary
materials which would be a cultural asset to the individual in
adult life. This emphasis was largely the result of the
Herbartian principles of education, which were invading America
at that time.
From about 1918 to 1925 the
aim in teaching reading was largely utilitarian. Silent reading
was more and more emphasized, and there was an ever-increasing
attention toward comprehension. This was a period of
experimental investigation; and objective evidence, coupled with
the testing movement, led school people generally to set up the
goal of definitely teaching children to become more effective
silent readers, in order that they might cope with the great
mass of practical materials with which they found themselves
surrounded.
At the present time we have
emerged into another era in which we recognize that children
have occasion to read for many different purposes in doing their
class work, and that adults read for a wide variety of purposes
in connection with their life activities. This many-sided
conception of the purpose of reading is clearly set forth by the
National Society for the Study of Education.4 The
Society states that the primary purpose of reading in school is
to extend the experiences of boys and girls, to stimulate their
thinking powers, and to elevate their tastes; in other words, to
give them a rich and varied experience through reading.
A second purpose is to develop
strong motives for and permanent interests in reading, so that
the individual may develop keen interests in life--in the world
and its people. This involves a desire to keep posted concerning
current events and social problems and the habit of reading
systematically for recreation and intellectual stimulation. The
third purpose, as set forth by the society, is to develop the
attitudes, habits, and skills that are essential in the various
types of reading activities ill which children and adults should
engage.
This last purpose involves,
first, the building-up of habits common to most reading
situations, such as the recognition of sentences as units of
thought and the anticipation of the sequence of ideas in
different types of sentences, the recognition of words and
groups of words, and the recognition and interpretation of such
typographical devices as punctuation, paragraphing, and the
like; second, it involves habits of intelligent interpretation
in silent reading; in the third place, it develops effective
oral interpretation of selections read to others; and in the
fourth place, it results in the skillful use of books,
libraries, and sources of information.
The content of reading.
The religious motive for teaching reading affected the reading
material of colonial times. Colonial reading material consisted
largely of the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, the
Apostles' Creed, the Catechism, certain passages of Scripture,
and religious admonitions and verses. During the nationalistic
period (1776-1840) reading material was largely of the
oratorical type, colored with a strongly patriotic tone. The
reading books of the period 1840 to 1880 reflected the
Pestalozzian emphasis upon the use of reading as a means of
obtaining information. Hence the upper-grade readers were given
over to a wide range of informational subjects having to do with
science, history, art, philosophy, economics, and politics.
Nature stories occupied a
large proportion of primers and first readers. Graded series of
readers appeared during the period and these readers contained
an increasing number of pictures dealing with objects and
experiences familiar to child life. Between 1880 and 1918 the
content of school readers was made up largely of literary
selections. Elocutionary rules disappeared, moralistic materials
lost their foothold, and informational selections in upper-grade
texts were replaced by literary selections.
Mother Goose rhymes and folk
tales were used largely in primary readers. The silent-reading
emphasis of 1918 to 1925 gave rise to the inclusion in school
readers of factual and informational selections similar to the
material met in practical life reading. Series of exercises and
questions also appeared for the testing of comprehension. The
emphasis at the present time is upon a broad reading program.
This broad reading program is largely the result of the many
studies which have appeared in regard to the reading interests
of children. Only a few of the more recent of these studies are
discussed.
1 Adapted from Huey, Edward Burke, The History
and Pedagogy of Reading. New York: The Macmillan Company,
1915; and O'Brien John Anthony, Reading: Its Psychology and Pedagogy.
New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1926.
2 Huey, op. cit., pp. 4~51; "Punctuation, "The
Encyclopedia Americana, XXIII (1936), p. 16; "Printing,"
The Encyclopedia Americana, XXII (1936), pp. 588590; and
"Printing," Encyclopaedia Britannica, XVIII
(14th edition), pp.499-500.
3 Smith, Nila Banton, "Successive Emphases in
American Reading Instruction," Teachers College Record,
xxxiv (December, I~32), pp. 158203.
4"Essential Objectives of Instruction
in Reading," Twenty- fourth Yearbook, Part I, National
Society for the Study of Education, pp.19, 925.
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* * updated 9 October
2007 |
