McGuffey Readers

[1][2][3] About 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.

[4] William Holmes McGuffey established a reputation as a lecturer on moral and biblical subjects while he was teaching at Miami University.

In 1835, the small Cincinnati publishing firm of Truman and Smith asked him to create a series of four graded readers for primary level students.

The advanced Readers contained excerpts from the works of well-regarded English and American writers and politicians such as Lord Byron, John Milton, and Daniel Webster.

The first Reader taught reading by using the phonics method, the identification of letters and their arrangement into words, and aided with slate work.

They used word repetition in the text as a learning tool, developing reading skills by challenging students using the books.

The Readers emphasized spelling, vocabulary, and formal public speaking, which was a more common requirement in 19th-century America than today.

The revised Readers were compiled to meet the needs of national unity and the dream of an American melting pot for the world's masses.

The desire for distinct grade levels and less overtly religious content, and the greater profitability of consumable workbooks all helped to bring about their decline.

[5][6] Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Ron Powers notes that the Readers affected the first mass-educated and mass-literate generation in the modern world.

Ford republished all six Readers from the 1867 edition and donated complete sets of them to schools across the United States.