Systematic Acquisition of Reading and Writing: An Exploration of Structure in Didactic Elementary Texts for German

The work presented here is part of a larger study that looks at the impact that structured teaching materials have on improving orthographic skills. The first step is an analysis of the current status of linguistic structures in common primary readers (primers) since their key purpose is to lead children along a systematic learning path towards becoming proficient readers and writers. Using text processing tools detecting morphemes, syllables and sentence structures, several popular primers are automatically examined with respect to their systematic approach to language at the phonics/syllable, word and sentence levels. It can be shown that there is little apparent structure in today’s school texts at any of the examined levels when compared to some older schoolbooks (1877, 1904) that have a systematic and explicit progression at all examined levels.