McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader, Revised Edition · Lesson III · Part 2: The good reader and the gentle hand

9. The Gentle Hand, by T. S. Arthur

Goal: Your child retells how a girl's gentle touch changed her mother, her brother and a stubborn pony, and talks about why gentleness has power.

⏱ About 40 minutes · 7 steps

Open it at the Internet Archive ↗

You'll need

  • The book, open to this lesson
  • A notebook and pencil

What's in the book

A traveler's story of a night at a farmhouse, where a slender girl calms a fierce dog, softens her mother's refusal and quiets a balky pony. A note about T. S. Arthur opens the lesson and a long list of definitions ends it.

The lesson, step by step

  1. Words and meanings

    Read some of the definitions at the end of the lesson:

    Vicinity, neighborhood.

    Repulsive, repelling, forbidding.

    Peremptory, commanding, decisive.

    Chiding, scolding, rebuking.

    Crotchet, a perverse fancy, a whim.

    SayUse peremptory in a sentence about a teacher or a parent.

  2. About the author

    Read the note at the start. It says Timothy S. Arthur was born near Newburgh, New York, and spent most of his life in Baltimore and Philadelphia. His schooling was limited, so he may be called self-educated. He wrote more than a hundred volumes, mostly novels of home life with a moral tone.

  3. Read aloud

    This lesson is long. Read it over one or two days, taking turns by paragraph.

    Dusky twilight was giving place to deeper shadows,

    "Go in, Tiger," said the girl,

    Later, at the pony:

    Dick stood firmly disobedient.

  4. Talk about it

    SayHow did the girl get the big dog to obey? How did the mother change her mind?

    SayWhat did the farmer and the boy try with Dick the pony? What worked instead?

    SayThe companion says, "She's good! Every body and every thing loves her." What does that tell us about where her power came from?

    SayWhy does the author show the gentle hand three times instead of once?

  5. Tell it back

    Your child narrates the story aloud, keeping the three moments in order: the dog, the mother, the pony.

  6. Copywork

    Copy:

    "What a wonderful power that hand possesses!" said I,

  7. Write (optional)

    Write about a time when a gentle word worked better than a harsh one.

Afterwards

If you split the reading, begin day two by having your child tell what happened so far.

@teddyrookbook GitHub