McGuffey's Eclectic Readers

Primer and First Reader

By: William McGuffey

Narrated by: Robin Field

Length: 1 hr and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

Born in 1800, William Holmes McGuffey had a remarkable ability to memorize, and could commit to mind entire books of the Bible. After becoming a teacher at the age of 14, classroom size was just one of several challenges faced by McGuffey. In many one-teacher schools, students - ages varied from six to twenty-one, and few textbooks existed. In 1835, a publishing firm asked McGuffey to create a series of graded Readers for primary level students. The series consisted of stories, poems, essays and speeches and it is estimated that at least 120 million copies of McGuffey's Readers were sold between 1836 and 1960, placing its sales in a category with the Bible and Webster’s Dictionary. Since 1961 they have continued to sell at a rate of some 30,000 copies a year. No other textbook bearing a single person's name has come close to that mark.

©2010 Mission Audio (P)2010 Mission Audio

Good for first or second grade

I look forward to reading this to my grandkids. We have had these books in our homeschool for a long time. When reading them I often think what the world would be like if we still used these McGuffey Readers in public schools. So many problems would be avoided; problems which, I’m afraid, can now only be avoided by teaching your children yourself. And what could be more natural than teaching your own children. Give it a try. The results and lifelong problems your children will escape will surprise you.