entertained.

=Mechanical Side of Oral Reading=

Now in what does oral reading consist? It consists, first of all, in
recognizing the words, pronouncing them correctly, and articulating
them distinctly. The pupil in the First Book, who is learning to read,
is trying to master this side of reading, which is the mechanical
side. He cannot be too careful as to the habits of speech he forms;
for correct position of the organs of speech and proper control of the
breath make for correct pronunciation and distinct articulation, which
are two of the foundation stones of good reading.

By =Correct Pronunciation=, we mean the pronunciation approved by a
standard dictionary. Elegance and refinement of speech depend largely
on the correct pronunciation of the vowel sounds. The vowel _a_, which
is sounded in seven different ways in the English language, presents
the greatest difficulty. Many people recognize at most, only the sound
of a in _at_, _ate_, _all_, _far_, and _mortal_ respectively. They
ignore the sound as in _air_, and the shorter quantity of the Italian
_a_ in _ask_, giving the sound of a in _ate_ to the former and of _a_
in _at_ or _a_ in _all_ or _a_ in _far_ to the latter. Another
difficulty is that of distinguishing the sound of _oo_ in _roof,
food_, etc., from the sound of _oo_ in _book_ and _good_, and from the
sound of _u_ in such words as _pure_ and _duke_.

Pronunciation, when perfectly pure, should be free from what we call
provincialisms; that is, from any peculiarity of tone, accent, or
vowel sound, which would mark the speaker as coming from any
particular locality. If our pronunciation is perfectly pure, it does
not indicate, in the slightest degree, the part of the country in
which we have lived.

=Distinct articulation= requires that each syllable should receive its
full value, and that the end of a word should be enunciated as
distinctly as the beginning. It depends largely on the way in which we
utter the consonants, just as correct pronunciation depends on the
enunciation of the vowels. Final consonants are easily slurred,
especially in the case of words ending in two or more consonants,
which present special difficulties of articulation. Such words are
_mends_, _seethes_, _thirsteth_, _breathed_, etc. Sometimes, too, the
careless reader fails to articulate two consonants separately when the
first word ends with the consonant or consonant sound with which the
second begins; for example, _Sir