McGuffey's Rat Reading Chart

Developed by William Holmes McGuffey, a college professor, and his brother Alexander Hamilton McGuffey, who was an educator and later becoming a lawyer, the Eclectic Readers (commonly, but informally known as the McGuffey Readers) were a series of graded primers for grade levels 1–6. William had a reputation as a lecturer on moral and biblical subjects while he was teaching at Miami University. In 1831, a small Cincinnati publishing firm of Truman and Smith asked him to create a series of four graded readers for primary level (1st - 5th grades) students, based on a recommendation from his longtime friend Harriet Beecher Stowe. He completed the first two readers within a year of signing his contract, receiving a fee of $1,000 ($30,000 today). He compiled the first four readers (1836–1837 edition), while the fifth and sixth were created by his brother Alexander Hamilton McGuffey during the 1840s. The series consisted of stories, poems, essays, and speeches.

This poster of a McGuffey's Rat Reading Chart appears to be some blown up page from the series. Most schools of the 19th century used only the first two in the series of McGuffey's four readers. The first Reader taught reading by using the phonics method, the identification of letters and their arrangement into words, and aided with slate work. The second Reader was used once students could read, helping them to understand the meaning of sentences, while providing vivid stories which children could remember. The third Reade taught the definitions of words and was written at a level equivalent to the 5th or 6th grade. The fourth Reader was written for the highest levels of ability on the grammar school level. 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.