The Daily Alaska Empire

Educator Yanks ABC's from the Scrap Heap. Puts Em to Work

By LYDIA GRAY SHAW
AP Feature Service Writer

BOSTON-Those well-worn ABC's once thrown into the trash basket along with Mother Goose and the multiplication table, have been put back into circulation.

Startling news in this day of progressive education, but it comes from Dr. Donald D. Durrell, professor of education at Boston University and director of the Educational Clinic there.

Dr. Durrell takes exception to the progressive thesis that reading should be taught by training the child to learn words from their appearance on the page.

You wouldn't believe it," he says, "but the most common error in children's reading is the confusion of the word 'girl' with the word 'dog.' Children see the curlicue of the letter 'g' and get the words mixed up. Stupid, but how are they to tell the words apart when they can't spell-have never even heard of the letter 'g'?"

Lest progressives start tearing at his throat, however, Dr. Durrell is willing to compromise. He will concede the value of phonetics if they'll let him teach the alphabet along with it.

Dr. Durrell then turned on methods of determining a child's intelligence quotient. A bright youngster-analytical, thorough, quick,-can't attain the proper I. Q. if he's a slow reader, says the alphabet advocate, because the tests have to be read to be comprehended.

Proof of the Pudding

He has devised a method of testing a child's ability to understand the spoken as well as the written word. The child minus the alphabet gets along beautifully with the hearing comprehension section, but falls down on the eye tests. That proved to Dr. Durrell the alphabet isn't dead yet.

Exhaustive tests have shown him that girls read better than boys-they're more analytical, have more patience. They also have shown this, he says:

Two children of the same age, background and previous education, starting the same reader under the same teacher, will stumble over different words. There's no accounting for it, the educator feels, so the only thing to do is to adapt methods accordingly. The alphabet, says Dr. Durrell, leads the way.