A Familiar Sounding Guide to Phonics

Hmm. Here’s a book titled Phonics Made Easy.

It’s aimed at teachers and Moms.

It is written by one Samuel Bower Sinclair, who happened to be the Principal of the Macdonald Teaching School from 1909 and 1911. So this man, a white haired Scot like Flora’s father Norman Nicholson, was the Principal when both May and Flora attended. I have his picture, too, from the McGill Education website.

In my first draft of Flora in the City, I mistakenly wrote that Sinclair Laird, the legendary Quebec educator, was the Principal (I have her shaking his hand at the graduation) but that wasn’t the case. He came on in 1913 and stayed for a long while.

S.B. Sinclair (as he called himself) was the one who probably shook her little hand at graduation. I figured this out when I perused the definitive book on Macdonald College, by John Ferguson Snell at the Westmount Library Yesterday. I had read it five years ago. Dr. Sinclair (as he had a PhD) was mentioned, but only briefly.

I went on the Internet and found nothing about him, except his full name. But now, with his full name, I was able to track down a few books on education he wrote. One in 1909, actually, about educational psychology and this one in 1917.

Reading this particular book, I was gob-smacked by the fact that the first three sample lessons seem to focus on the words cat and ham and sam. Get my drift.

I have seen a number of Royal Crown Readers of the era (as I research Flo and the City) and their beginning exercises are SO BORING I always think of Dr. Seuss (Theodore Geisel)and how much FUN we ALL had reading Sr. Seuss, when my sons were young. “Do you like my hat?” Just thinking of the story lines tickles me pink.

Then I find this old book and I wonder if Dr. Seuss saw it too and then thought, “I can go one better than CAT on the MAT. That’s not how the story goes, according to Wikipedia, anyway. The brilliant man was supposedly given a list of words by the Director of Education at Houghton Mifflin, which he honed down and used to write his books. So maybe this Director of Education had this Sinclair book on hand.

Now, oddly, I spent some time last decade on Literacy Projects and I am certain I read a paper that claimed that Dr. Seuss’s books did not teach reading through phonics, but through Word Recognition.

Here’s Lesson 1 of Sinclair’s book. Now, S.B. Sinclair had a doctorate, too, like Geisel, and he wanted to teach reading, too, and he had the concept down, CAT MAT -HAM -SAM but what he didn’t have is GENIUS, and he hadn’t worked in advertising, either, as had Dr. Seuss. (I know Albert Einstein is thought to be the man who best illustrates genius, but I choose Dr. Seuss.)

Now, I happen to have one of Flora’s notebooks, with notes about “Reading.” It is not totally out of the realm of possiblity that Sinclair gave a lecture to her class (even thought he was Principal and not a teacher).

Flora writes: Sounds: paper, metal, water, animal, vehicles. Direct attention is position of throat. Tell them things to do the sounds.

Stories: Don’t read stories directly to young children TELL them.

Sinclair gives the same advice in his book.

This is all very useful for my Flora in the City story.

OH, and while looking for S.B. Sinclair online, an archive.org document came up that completely describes Macdonald College, the layout of the buildings and what rooms are in them, in a way no other book I found does. What luck!

Some things I learned: Teachers take class on the second and third floor of the main building. All students must study in their rooms between 8 pm and 10 pm each night.

And most interesting: It is plainly stated that Macdonald is about training RURAL teachers, which makes it all so ironic. Also interesting: A candidate for Macdonald must have a recommendation from the School Inspector. (Mr. Carmichael?.. must check Census. Carmichael was the Prebyterian Minister.. but that doesn’t preclude him being School Inspector. Margaret also mentions a Mr. Cleveland.)

There are no academic qualifications for the Household Science…. although, like the teachers and agriculture students, candidates must be of sound moral character. That might be why the Clergyman has such sway in education matters; although it is likely he is attached to the school.