McGuffey's Eclectic Primer, Revised Edition [Hardcover]

William Holmes McGuffey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 11, 1997

Since 1836, children have been delighted by these volumes filled with exotic adventures, exciting stories, beautiful poems, and funny fables.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 64 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass; Revised Edition edition (November 11, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471288888
• ISBN-13: 978-0471288886
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #486,169 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars progressive, consistent and a great learning tool., July 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: McGuffey's Eclectic Primer, Revised Edition (Hardcover)

My kids were trying to read at toddler age. But trying to teach them with those commercial "I can read" books were impossible. They were distracted by the pretty pictures and would try to improvise and guess at words by looking at the pictures. Also, words like 'turtle' and 'trouble' are not first reader words.

But with this primer, the pictures are pretty but subtle and so the only thing left for the child to concentrate on are the words. Each section, which is one page each, starts with a small group of words to learn, some are memorizing words like "the" and some they can sound out like "cat." Then they take those words and read small paragraphs using those words. The following sections introduce more words and use those and previous words in the paragraphs. It's a very progressive thing and takes about 5 - 10 minutes per page so your child can read a section, run off to play and read another one the next day. It works and it is exciting hearing them read.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why spend so much money for Hooked on Phonics?, February 25, 2004

By 

pammylamb (Lemont, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: McGuffey's Eclectic Primer, Revised Edition (Hardcover)

Last fall, we borrowed the Hooked on Phonics from a neighbor, and saw limited results with my 5 yr old son. BUT, I thought, some progress is better than none, so I begged my mother to buy Hooked on Phonics for Christmas. She didn't. I thought she was just being cheap by giving him a McGuffey Primer, but I have seen my son FLY through the lessons. He is reading with comprehension and retaining the words better than I ever could have imagined. Hooked on Phonics was just too colorful, included too much media (little books, big books, stickers, CDRoms, videotapes, etc.) and was, I don't know, just so HECTIC feeling. With these readers, we sit together on the couch, my son is able to go at his own pace, and have a real sense of accomplishment in just a 5-10 minute lesson. And he has an interest in reading *outside* of the lessons, also, which he didn't have before. I ENCOURAGE YOU to purchase this reader, as well as the entire set, since when you have one, you'll want them all.

BTW- *My son* asked Grandma for the next McGuffey reader for his birthday. Pretty cool, huh?

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Learning to Read the Old-Fashioned Way, May 9, 2001

By 

Andrea Broomfield (Kansas City) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: McGuffey's Eclectic Primer, Revised Edition (Hardcover)

Originally Attracted to the McGuffey readers for the novelty of it, I bought the Primer shortly after my first child was born. I read it myself, thought the pedagogy sound--particularly the writers' decision to avoid allowing children to use pictures to "guess" the words--and I came to appreciate the simplicity and clarity of the short lessons. While I use many other beginning reader books to help teach my five-year-old daughter to read, we have been working through the McGuffey Primer and loving it, primarily because the lessons are short enough to keep my daughter's attention and to allow her to feel at the end of each lesson that she has accomplished something.

I particularly appreciate the "Reviews" that come after each set of four or five lessons. No pictures means that the child must entirely depend on her/his memory of the words from previous lessons and on phonetics in order to make her/his way through the review.

One slight drawback would be that for some of the lessons, the story line is not clear enough to catch the child's attention. On some occassions, my daughter reads all the words, but she fails to comprehend the lesson's meaning. This is rare, but more modern readers do a better job of making their stories engaging enough that the child forgets how "hard" it is to read, and instead races through the book to find out what happens.

Nonetheless, I think that parents who are serious about teaching their children to read and who understand the value of supplementing their child's school curriculum, will appreciate the Primer and subsequent titles in the McGuffey series. At the same time, they will expose themselves and their children to a bit of Americana!