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Posted on 02/09/2026 2:33:06 PM PST by ProgressingAmerica
William Holmes McGuffey (September 23, 1800 – May 4, 1873) was an American professor and college president who is best known for writing the McGuffey Readers, one of the nation's first and most widely used series of textbooks. It is estimated that at least 122 million copies of McGuffey Readers were sold between 1836 and 1960, placing its sales in a category with the Bible and Webster's Dictionary.
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How many McGuffey Readers are there?
McGuffey Readers are apparently highly popular among home school parents. So are Ray's Arithmetics.
How many Ray's Arithmetics books are there?
Do home school parents also use Thalheimer's for teaching history?
I would highly appreciate any other author or book recommendations. Authors and books that I have not named or specified.
Friendly ping per our recent conversation
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Maybe you could run it through Grok. Seriously.
Oh and there are eight Ray's Arithmetic books.
Grok worked well once I had enough information to form a cogent question.
McGuffey’s Eclectic Primer (or simply McGuffey Eclectic Primer) — introductory level, often for pre-K to grade 1.
McGuffey’s First Eclectic Reader (or McGuffey’s Eclectic First Reader).
McGuffey’s Second Eclectic Reader (or McGuffey’s Eclectic Second Reader).
McGuffey’s Third Eclectic Reader (or McGuffey’s Eclectic Third Reader).
McGuffey’s Fourth Eclectic Reader (or McGuffey’s Eclectic Fourth Reader).
McGuffey’s Fifth Eclectic Reader (or McGuffey’s Eclectic Fifth Reader).
McGuffey’s Sixth Eclectic Reader (or McGuffey’s Eclectic Sixth Reader).
As luck would have it the entire collection is at Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/5671
In this instance the titles were simple enough and basically incremental in their titling. That is not always the case.
Why would anyone want in audio format a book intended to teach reading?
Bookmark
McGuffy’s home has been preserved on the campus of Miami University (of Ohio, for Miami was a university when Florida was owned by Spain).
That is easy to answer.
1) Everybody learns differently - some learn best though sound that they’re hearing.
2) Repetition. After reading to a youth for so many times, it could be useful to let the audio do the heavy lifting just by using replay value.
2a) In regard to repetition: it shouldn’t be too difficult to have/use as a tool to replay select minutes 17-23, pause, then play 17-23 again, as many times as is needed. For example. Or whatever segments are necessary/useful in that moment.
There probably are other reasons, but I don’t question that really. I think the whole series should be available and ready for use even if only one single person wants it. That one person enough deserves the choice.
Isn’t the purpose of McGuffey’s Reader to teach reading? How are you going to learn to read if you don’t see the text.
I would assume this is in the public domain and freely available to anyone on Internet Archive.
Grok is pretty much giving me books that are still within copyright, so it’s generally not helpful.
When asked about McGuffey’s it didn’t recommend Thalheimer’s, for example. and if I don’t include to ask about Ray’s it doesn’t recommend it at all. It has trouble crossing disciplines.
The other and larger trouble with AI, it’s likely going to be inflicted with the disease of recent-ism. It classed things from the 1950s and 1970s as ‘vintage and old’.
I am required to pre-know the title or author to ask Grok, but then if I already know the title or author why am I bothering to waste my time to ask Grok? Grok doesn’t have the answers I seek. I need humans here.
While I do appreciate every recommendation regardless of its publication date, I can’t audio book them if they’re too new.
The child would have the text in front of them, potentially, as the audio gets played. But I can’t know all use cases. Each parent or educator might have the opportunity to use the audio as seen fit.
Perhaps the reverse needs to be asked though.
What downsides can you foresee of having the entire series recorded as audio? What possible damage could ensue?
Yes, the audio is free and open source and is available on the Internet Archive through LibriVox, as is the text.
One of the rooms in our family homestead has shelves full of McGuffey, math, social studies, etc. books from when my aunt was a “normal school” teacher in the 1920s.
Hubby is a PhD in Physics and he was blown away by the difficulty level in the 6th grade math books.
People have these things but I don’t always know enough to know what I don’t know in order to ask a valid question in a search or ai.
What are some of the social studies authors there from the 1920s or earlier if you’re willing to share?
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