_Didactic Material._ The Didactic Material for the lessons in reading consists in slips of paper or cards upon which are written in clear, large script, words and phrases. In addition to these cards we have a great variety of toys.
Experience has taught me to distinguish clearly between _writing and reading_, and has shown me that the two acts _are not absolutely contemporaneous_. Contrary to the usually accepted idea, writing _precedes reading_. I do not consider as _reading_ the test which the child makes _when he verifies_ the word that he has written. He is translating signs into sounds, as he first translated sounds into signs. In this verification he already knows the word and has repeated it to himself while writing it. What I understand by reading is the _interpretation_ of an idea from the written signs. The child who has not heard the word pronounced, and who recognises it when he sees it composed upon the table with the cardboard letters, and who can tell what it means; this child _reads_. The word which he reads has the same relation to written language that the word which he hears bears to articulate language. Both serve to _receive the language_ transmitted to us _by others_. So, until the child reads a transmission of ideas from the written word, _he does not read_.
We may say, if we like, that writing as described is a fact in which the psycho-motor mechanism prevails, while in reading, there enters a work which is purely intellectual. But it is evident how our method for writing prepares for reading, making the difficulties almost imperceptible. Indeed, writing prepares the child to interpret mechanically the union of the letter sounds of which the written word is composed. When a child in our school knows how to write, _he knows how to read the sounds_ of which the word is composed. It should be noticed, however, that when the child composes the words with the movable alphabet, or when he writes, he has _time to think_ about the signs which he must select to form the word. The writing of a word requires a great deal more time than that necessary for reading the same word.
The child who _knows how to write_, when placed before a word which he must interpret by reading, is silent for a long time, and generally reads the component sounds with the same slowness with which he would have written them. But _the sense of the word_ becomes evident only when it is pronounced clearly and with the phonetic accent. Now, in order to place the phonetic accent the child must recognise the word; that is, he must recognise the idea which the word represents. The intervention of a superior work of the intellect is necessary if he is to read. Because of all this, I proceed in the following way with the exercises in reading, and, as will be evident, I do away entirely with the old-time primer.