The Oglala light. [volume], May 01, 1910, Image 18

About The Oglala light. [volume] ([Pine Ridge, S.D.]) 190?-19??

Image provided by: South Dakota State Historical Society – State Archives

                
By Helen F. West
The Need of Special Books
for Indian Children:
Kindergartner, Oglala Boarding School.
child of English speaking parents, on entering school, brings
with him a large and varied vocabulary. Perhaps not of the
choicest words but nevertheless a vocabulary for his use in his daily
tasks. For him the slightest word or expression of the teacher has
its meaning. He is eager and willing to master the alphabet and
number symbals by whatever method they may be presented. They
are the keys to the wonderful mysteries of the Chart and Primer,
and to all the picture books he has at home.
With the Indian child, it is not so. He comes to school at the age
of six or seven, timid, bashful and without, in many cases, a word of
English at his command. What wonder that it is all a sore puzzle
to him that the alphabet is a series of so many peculiar sounds, and
his numbers quite as queer. And yet we expect him to begin his
reading lessons from the Chart we give to the English speaking child.
We expect him to puzzle out how words that sound so much alike as
hat, rat, cat, mat, etc., can possibley mean such different things. For
the white child's chart makes lar^e use of similar sounds. And how
words like Will and May can sometimes mean a little child and
sometimes simply ability and permission.
Surely it is not right or practical to use such a system in teaching
the Indian child. Yet the average teacher on entering the Service
does not understand this and by the time she has solved the problem
she is perhaps ready to leave the Service, or wishes to transfer and
the children must in all probability go thru another series of ex
periments with the newcomer.
So much of this might be avoided if there were books arranged for
Indian children. Why not begin with a chart? Let it introduce the
alphabet, a few letters at a time, by the means of easy words, the
names of objects most common in the child's life. Let him learn to