McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader, Revised Edition · Lesson LXII · Part 7: Lost and found

66. Which?, by Mrs. E. L. Beers

Goal: Your child reads a story poem about a poor family and explains why the parents could not give up any child.

⏱ About 25 minutes · 6 steps

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You'll need

  • The book, open to this lesson
  • A notebook or lined paper and a pencil

What's in the book

A story poem: a poor couple with seven children is offered a house and land if they will give up one child to a rich, childless man. Husband and wife walk among the sleeping children, one by one, and cannot choose. Definitions follow.

The lesson, step by step

  1. Words and meanings

    The new words are at the end of the lesson, under Definitions. The small number in front of each word is the paragraph or verse where it is used. Read them together before the lesson. A few of them:

    Surveyed, took a view of.

    Crown, an English silver coin worth about $1.20.

    Turbulent, disposed to disorder.

    Courteous, polite.

    Ask your child to find two of these words in the lesson and read the sentence each one is in.

  2. Read it aloud

    Read the poem aloud to your child first, then let your child read it. It begins with the hard question:

    Which shall it be? Which shall it be?

    I looked at John — John looked at me;

    Then have your child read it a second time, more smoothly: the first reading is for the meaning, the second for the sound and rhythm.

  3. Talk about it

    SayWhat offer did the family receive? Why was it tempting?

    SayWho are the children? What does the mother say about each?

    SayWhy do they stop even at "bad Dick"?

    SayWhat did they decide in the end?

    Let your child look back at the page to find answers.

  4. Tell it back

    Your child tells the story in prose, child by child, as the parents walked through the house.

  5. Copywork

    Your child copies these lines as verse:

    First to the cradle light we stepped,

    Where Lilian the baby slept,

  6. Words to learn

    Learn: aye, surveyed, crown, wayward, turbulent, courteous, accustomed. Spell each aloud, then write it with its meaning.

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