McGuffey's Eclectic Readers: Primer Through The Sixth 1st rev. Edition

Today, I ordered my fifth boxed set of McGuffey's Eclectic Reader. The first set I purchased was for my son, now 24, and the other sets for the children of relatives and friends.From the primer's opening- word captioned pictures of a cat and a rat- to the Poe, Addison, Shakespeare, Parkman, Longfellow, Sappho, St.Paul, Dr.Johnson, and their brethren of Volume 6, this method imparts the love of reading and its tradition to those who follow its well defined path.McGuffey is a graduated comprehensive collection which includes spelling drills, vocabulary, phonetics, and elocution. McGuffey is the unsung road back to the future. Expressed through the stories, fables, and poems, of traditional writing,the magic of McGuffey, is its untarnished embrace of humanity; Words have power, stories express truth, and there is a right and a wrong. One who learns to read from this set of seven books embraces words as filled with delight and history. Of course,one can teach reading in many ways using Doctor Suess, Dick and Jane, or rented Jesuits. And while a miscellany of material and methods may get the job done,and done well, few parents have the time or expertise to sort through the thousands of options the modern printing press provides. If you have the time to develop and individualize a life time curiculum wonderful. If not McGuffey, has done it all for you.Virtue is a habit and convenience faciliates habits. Having one set of books to turn to every day works. In our house, McGuffey became an incantation which still resonates. Some might be concerned about the moral tone of many of the Reader's selections. Fear not, at its core the Reader provides tools for independent thinking not the grist for goose stepping or dogma.If you want great things for your child's future, read one McGuffey lesson a day, out loud and together. When you reach the last page, your child will have a love for reading, and the written and spoken word.

We had owned the 1836 McGuffey's Readers (the brown books, published by Mott Media) for years, but although I knew they were considered classics and had a great deal of excellent material in them, we never read them. The pictures were unattractive and the tone of the readings often was too. It was heavy-handed, and lacking in the joy which I believe should always be present in some way in children's literature. Labored, uninteresting moral lessons are no true reflection of the joy of faith in Christ and not the way to attract anyone, child or adult, to a virtuous life. Only recently I became aware that a later edition existed, with much better illustrations and better-quality reading selections. In addition to the better quality of the literature and aesthetics, these books are slightly smaller than the Mott Media versions, printed on thinner paper, which makes them feel more satisfying to hold, and easier for smaller hands to handle. My third grader finds reading these an enjoyable experience, and he's rather thrilled to find a "school book" (from schools light-years away from those of 2014 America!) which unabashedly talks about love of God, gratitude, service, and the rewards of striving for virtue.Another reviewer mentioned that the set only contained up to the fourth reader, but the complete set does contain seven volumes, from the primer through the sixth reader. It might be worth contacting the seller to verify that if buying used.I'm so glad we found these. Highly recommended!

My oldest son struggles with and dislikes reading (he just finished 4th grade) and I have tried so many different things to help him with little success. A friend suggested these, and although I was skeptical, after reading all of the positive reviews, I decided to give these a try. I have to say, I am thrilled with these books. The stories are interesting, not too long or overwhelming, and have a good moral component to them. I also like that there are word lists at the beginning of each lesson with the words broken into syllables with diacritical marks so the kids (my younger daughter is also reading them) can learn to pronounce unfamiliar words on their own. Since we have started using these, my son never complains when I tell him it's time to read. Not once. I am so happy to find books that are written at his level but broken into shorter segments so he finds them to be manageable. He is enjoying reading more and gaining confidence as a reader. Highly recommended!

Grandkid loves reading them.. great books

While these books would be excellent to help teach children to read; we bought it for a different reason. Our family is using them to practice public speaking. ( I wish I had known about these when I was teaching the kids to read)They are reprinted from the orginal. For generations; these were the books used to teach American children how to read, vocabulary, spelling, poetry, give moral instruction, history, science, geograhpy, introduce them to far away places and so much more. Many one room school houses in the West had nothing but these books , the Bible and a Dictionary.My grandfather (in his 80's) was over one day and spied this on the table. He said he actaully remembered using these in school. As he flipped through the pages, he said it brought back such memories.They are set up from easy reader to more advance. As you master one book you can move on to the next. At the end of each entry, there is a vocab section and questions to ask to see if they get what they just read.A wealth of knowledge that even adults will enjoy reading.