Hello my name is Kathryn and I'm going to talk about the first readers that were used in Australian schools. These were the Irish National school books. The beginnings of our public schools were modelled on the Irish National system of education.
Local content was lacking, however, and so they developed the Australian school series that was published in Australia in the 1880s. As you can see they are very, very similar.
These go from Primer through to Book Five. Reading lessons from these books were prescribed in the Course of Instruction.
Revised editions then became the New Australian School Series and by 1904 they could be supplemented by the Commonwealth School Paper.
Passed through families from brothers to sisters, the readers provided history, geography and science facts, poetry and folktales, and lessons on health, morals and practical aspects of living. They were used for comprehension, spelling, grammar and dictation tests. Getting progressively harder, the fifth and final book had an edition for boys and one for girls.
Our sets of early Australian readers give us a glimpse into the lessons, life, language and moral values of the period.
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