These spelling practice activities and lesson plans help children learn to spell. This hardback book, written by Alexander H. McGuffey [brother of William McGuffey], is 142 pages. Called "Progressive" because it begins with basic phonics and progresses to advanced vocabulary worthy of a graduate student. It is the only spelling book you will ever need.

Learning to read the McGuffey way offers: Phonics foundations, Moral growth, and Rich vocabulary. How would McGuffey teach reading if he were here today? His first concern would be that the content should promote moral growth and excellence of mind in habits, attitudes, and literary tastes. And Bible selections would be at the top of his reading list.

McGuffey also believed in phonics for beginning reading. Methods and timing should be adapted to the individuality of each child. Parents should not send their dearest treasure off to school too early in life, but should proceed at the child's own pace. This preserves the vigor of his mental action.

McGuffey believed in memorizing as a way to develop habits of attention that promote understanding and mastery of ALL learning, even those studies which are not memorized.

McGuffey believed that an obvious result of a cultivated mind is a wide vocabulary. And the best way to cultivate a wide vocabulary is to learn words in their context, as in studying the important ideas and noble thoughts presented in the Readers.

These principles produce the education that shaped American character, particularly in the West, for over one hundred years. It's the kind of education the majority of Americans want and need today. IT'S TIME FOR THE CLASSICS AGAIN.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
William Holmes McGuffey [1800-1873] was a "born" educator. Beginning by teaching his younger brothers and sisters, William McGuffey accepted his first teaching position at 13 in a one-room school with 48 students. After graduating from Washington College and being ordained as a Presbyterian minister, he taught moral philosophy at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio for almost ten years. It was during this period that McGuffey wrote and compiled the Readers which made him famous. Later McGuffey rose to the rank of university president, serving Cincinnati College and Ohio University, but spent the final third of his life teaching moral philosophy at the University of Virginia.