Paco Senior Member Hong Kong Joined 4278 days ago 145 posts - 251 votes Speaks: Cantonese*
| Message 1 of 4 16 August 2014 at 2:15am | IP Logged |
Dear Native Speakers and Old-schooled Learners,
I would like to acquire some primers (often named readers) in the languages you know so
well, but I do not know where to look for... If you have heard of or even used these
lost gems, would you be so generous to share with me the treasure map?
I would read them for my own pleasure and learning. Of most interest to me are those of
the bigger and more popular languages, but I am eager to appreciate the beauty of every
little primer you can tell. (I really like old stuff.)
For people not acquainted with them, an example of primers is the McGuffey Readers,
which is aimed at teaching literacy to American primary school and early grammar school
children. Primers usually consist of folk tales and poems, sometimes they also have
essays and excerpts from literature. I know some American parents still uses these
old works, and there are some contemporary series for homeschoolers, but I have no idea
how popular they are today (AFAIK not popular for Chinese). Many American primers from
the by-gone age can be found free online.
And I hope the same is true for German, French, Italian and Spanish, perhaps even
Russian, Arabic, Persian, Hindustani and Japanese.
Thank you for your help.
Edit: More examples of series of primers from late 19th to early 20th century for
American children, all of which can be found easily at archive.org
i) Arnold ans Gilbert, Stepping Stones to Literature
ii) Treadwell and Free, Reading-Literature
iii) Elson, Elson Readers
iv) Young and Field, Literary Readers
Edited by Paco on 16 August 2014 at 2:53pm
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Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5321 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English
| Message 2 of 4 16 August 2014 at 10:40am | IP Logged |
You might find the following two very old-fashioned German natural method textbooks interesting, which you can read online or download as epub or mobi ebooks from Project Gutenberg:
Studien und Plaudereien: vol 1
Studien und Plaudereien: vol 2
Note that the German texts in these books are written according to the pre-1901 spelling conventions. For example:
thun, that, gethan vs. tun, tat, getan
Erkenntniß vs. Erkenntnis
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Paco Senior Member Hong Kong Joined 4278 days ago 145 posts - 251 votes Speaks: Cantonese*
| Message 3 of 4 19 August 2014 at 5:41am | IP Logged |
Can anyone confirm that language primers aimed at native young people (6 to 14 and above)
are unique things in the English-speaking world, and absent in other communities? Thank
you.
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Arnaud25 Diglot Senior Member France Joined 3843 days ago 129 posts - 235 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Russian
| Message 4 of 4 19 August 2014 at 12:43pm | IP Logged |
For french.
For 6 years old children learning to read, before the 70's, there was the Boscher Method:
click
It's still used nowadays by parents who don't want to use the "globale" or "semi-globale" method used in the public schools (google syllabic vs global method in french: it's a hot debate). But it's not a reader according to your definition.
In high-school, the "Lagarde et Michard" (book in 6 volumes, teachers usually used mainly the 18e, 19e and 20e century volumes) was used before the 90's (considered very good by teachers and very boring by the students :o)). It's full of extracts of classical french writers.
I don't remember the books I've read when I was in school (6-12 y.o), sorry.
Edited by Arnaud25 on 19 August 2014 at 1:18pm
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