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The elementary reader Charlotte Mason recommended!

A child who is advancing in reading skills thrives on interesting words and suitable challenges. Whether your child needs more reading instruction or just an opportunity to practice reading aloud, Mrs. Barbauld’s Hymns in Prose for Children is just the reader for that stage! The fourteen hymns are beautifully composed thoughts—in prose, not in poetry—that point to God’s handiwork all around us and encourage a love and reverence for Him. Breath-taking pen and ink drawings add to your child’s experience and help cultivate his taste for beautiful words and artwork—all while reinforcing reading skills. Short fables, and such graceful, simple prose as we have in Mrs Gatty’s Parables from Nature, and, still better, in Mrs Barbauld’s prose poems, are very suitable. Even for their earliest reading lessons, it is unnecessary to put twaddle into the hands of children (Vol. 1, p. 205).

• Increase your child’s reading confidence.—If your child is increasing in his ability to figure out many words on his own, the Hymns in Prose for Children student reader is all you need. Just give him opportunity every day to practice reading aloud from it. This edited version makes sure your child is seeing words in their most common forms (for example, “crawls” instead of “crawleth”). By the end of Hymns in Prose your child should be a fluent reader.
• Cultivate a love for God.—Mrs. Barbauld wrote these hymns to help your child grow “accustomed to see the Creator in the visible appearances of all around him, to feel His continual presence, and lean upon His daily protection.”
• Use for recitation and copywork.—Hymns in Prose for Children provides beautiful passages for your child to memorize and recite for the enjoyment and benefit of others. You can also use them to improve your child’s penmanship by encouraging him to copy the hymns, little by little, slowly and carefully in his best handwriting. Hymns in Prose copybooks are available.