Cobweb Corner KISS Grammar Main Course Page

The KISS Presentation and Analysis of
McGuffey's Eclectic Readers

     With the advent of the web, teachers and parents of home-schooled children have asked for instructional material that uses the KISS Approach. In 1986 I did a research project that involved analyzing passages from McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader. In preparing that material for the web, I realized that I could also use it for instructional material in the KISS Grammar Workbooks. I have therefore started to post passages from the McGuffey's Second, Third, and Fourth readers. In November of 2002, John Bradshaw, in Sydney, Australia, volunteered to scan the text and graphics for the Fifth and Sixth readers, copies of which I do not have. I thank him for his contribution.
     The passages in this section can be used for instruction, and they are also part of my continuing research into style and natural syntactic development. Each passage is presented, to the best of my ability, exactly as it appeared in the revised 1920 edition. A link ("Stats") for each passage, leads to the statistical analysis of the passage. In addition, "Answer" keys may be provided for each level of the KISS Approach.


McGuffey's Second Eclectic Reader

McGuffey's Third Eclectic Reader

McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader

McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader

I wish to thank my mother for the gift of the scanner 
which made making these borders possible.