Historical information

This publication was produced in the mid 1900s when the study of learning disabilities in children was in its infancy stage. The complexities of teaching methodologies to cover various symptoms uncovered by pre-school and primary school education facilities was that "one method suites all". This format changed in the later 1900s when specific "tailor made" teaching facilities where introduced and the "average" pre-school and primary school teaching professionals where not "on the whole" faced with the requirement to apply special remedial programs themselves but instead instigated a referral to dedicated specialists. This book covers the rural student with slow reading, comprehension and writing problems, in an environment where specialist speech therapists and child psychologists were and are still rare.

Significance

This book although very thorough and highlights the major "communication and reading symptoms, in school children" and remedial treatment, places undue pressure upon those teachers, who, at some rural schools are faced with teaching classroom of students varying in age and thereby abilities of comprehension. Schools in rural Australia sometimes had smaller numbers of classrooms and facilities due to their small feeder population and their regional isolation. The Kiewa Valley before the dramatic increase in population in the mid 1950s (SEC Hydro Scheme) was one of these rural communities whose "schooling population" was diverse and small. This reference book, which was used at a Kiewa Valley primary school, reflects upon the Department of Education in Victoria as a highly professional organisation readily applying "modern" learning techniques to all of the department's regional areas. By this broad based application, no school was seen as having any disadvantage due to physical and/or financial isolation.

Physical description

This book has a plain red, cloth bonded, hard cardboard cover with an envelope attached to the inside back cover. The book has a one front blank flyleaf and two rear flyleaves. All lettering ,diagrams, sketches are in black on white as is the only photograph.There is three double sided "preface" pages and nine "contents" pages. There are 508 double sided pages covering 20 chapters and 25 double sided Appendices (5) and four double sided "Index Of Subjects". The cover has printing only on the spine.

Inscriptions & markings

On the spine at the top "BACKWARDNESS IN THE BASIC SUBJECTS" underneath "SCHONELL" and at the bottom "OLIVER & BOYD"