Rhythm is as natural as breathing, and rhyming is easy for children with
quick ears and quick thought. You will be surprised the first time you
try the exercise to see how quickly they will imitate a rhythm with
which they are familiar, and the skill they show in making rhymes. Try
it first as an oral exercise, and later ask for written lines. Much of
such work may not be profitable, but it serves well to give variety.
Making simple parodies is amusing and stimulating to thought. Sometimes
you will help by suggesting rhymes or by giving hints as to the subject
to be parodied.

Take the nursery rhyme _There Was an Old Woman_ (Volume I, page 36) for
a model. Suggest _bird_ and _nest_ as ideas for new rhymes and keep
helping until you get something like this:

There was a sweet birdie
Who built a fine nest,
A beautiful birdie
With a very red breast.

Use the same meter many times over till all become familiar with it.
Similar exercises prove highly interesting to children of all ages.

Although this is not a treatise on written language lessons, a few
general suggestions may not be out of place:

1. Be sure that the children have something interesting about which to
write.

2. Be sure that they have a good stock of ideas on the subject, or that
they know how and where to get information and can get it without great
difficulty.

3. Be sure that they write an outline of their composition or have one
thoroughly in mind before they begin on the essay itself.

4. Give plenty of time for the writing.

5. Show a decided interest in their preparation and in their
compositions.

6. Do not be severe in your criticisms. Give encouragement. Concentrate
your efforts on one or two errors at a time. Let other mistakes pass
till a more convenient time.

7. _a._ Watch for errors:

(1) In the use of capital letters.

(2) In the use of punctuation marks; first of terminal marks, then
of the marks within a sentence.

_b._ See that every sentence is complete, with subject and predicate.

_c._ See that verbs agree with subjects, and pronouns with antecedents.

_d._ Insist that the work be paragraphed.

_e._ Watch for errors in case among the pronouns. The objective case is
troublesome.

_f._ Look for adjective forms where adverbial forms are correct.

8. Require care in all work. Neatness and legibility are essential.

9. Mark errors, do not correct them. Let the children do that.