Alphabet book

An example of the reliance on the alphabet for reading instruction is found in John Bunyan's, A Book for Boys and Girls, or Country Rhymes for Children.

The wording printed on them varied greatly, but usually featured an alphabet, and, unlike the hornbook, entertainment was provided as well as instruction in the form of illustrations.

The battledore was a more complex type of horn book printed on thick paper folded in three parts containing enlarged text with word to object illustrations for each of the capital letters bordering the four sides.

Tuer's Royal Battledore illustrated the lower case alphabet letters with a for Apple; j, k, q, and x for Judge, King, Queen and Xerxes; m for Mouse and z for Zany jester.

In fact, some battledores' upper and lower borders contained this rhyme: There is evidence of a gradual shift to more secular topics for general reading instruction from predominantly religious material.

Experienced with both hornbooks and battledores, children graduated on to the modern concept of a small book, multiple paper pages covered with a thick, protective layer.

During the American colonial period the more secular "ABC" spellers quickly fell out of favor in comparison with the more religious primers; nevertheless, the alphabet remained the most systematic means of ordering the written contents of schoolbooks.

The passage, 'our KING the good, No man of blood' illustrated the letter K[10] Due to the conflict with the English monarchy, The K couplet was altered and appeared in the revised 1777 edition as 'Proud Korah's troop, was swallowed up.

Referring to mortal sin, the original U for 'Uriah's beauteous wife made David seek his life' was censored by omitting U and skipping to V. The alphabet letters were used to teach the moral code aspired by society and religion.

Believed to be the inventor of battledores in 1746, Benjamin Collins actually printed 100,000 copies between 1771 and 1780[14] Exemplifying the move away from strictly religious texts to more moral works, an outstanding example of the next generation of readers was the 1742 version of The Child’s New Plaything.

Alphabet books can make use of alliteration, onomatopoeia, creative narrative, poetry, illusions, treasure hunts and humor to hold a reader's interest.