Other languages

• Dutch: ABC-boekje, abecedarium 
• French: abécédaire, ABC, alphabet, syllabaire (19th c.) 
• German: Fibel 
• Italian: abbecedario, ABC, sillabario, alfabeto
• Polish: abecedariusz
• Spanish: cartilla, abecedario, abecerol, becerol, silabario (18th c.) 

Material form

Subject

Description

A booklet containing the alphabet, used as a tool for teaching young children how to read. Next to the alphabet itself, it might include a small catechism and/or a prayer, commonly the Lord’s Prayer (see catechism primer). Usually printed in octavo or quarto. Sometimes also printed in small size on a hornbook.  

Sometimes the alphabet is presented in the form of verse, in which every line or every alternate line starts with a consecutive letter of the alphabet. This verse form does not appear in Italy.

With respect to Spanish abecedaries, a distinction is made between the abecedario that focuses on the alphabet and that may include some elementary grammar and instruction on syllables, and the cartilla  that combines the alphabet with catechetical content. 

Related terms

ABC primer, abecedary, hornbook, catechism primer, children’s book and schoolbook

Sources

‘Abécédaires’, https://gallica.bnf.fr/html/und/livres/abecedaires

P. Buijnsters, Nederlandse kinderboeken uit de achttiende eeuw (Amsterdam: Querido’s Uitgeverij, 1989).

P. Buijnsters and L. Buijnsters-Smets, Bibliografie van Nederlandse school- en kinderboeken 1700-1800 (Zwolle: Waanders, 1997).

B. Farkas (ed.), L’Art des abécédaires français (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes / La Compagnie des mots, 2018).

N. Glaisyer, ‘Popular Didactic Literature’, in: J. Raymond (ed.), The Oxford History of Popular Print Culture, Vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 510-519.

S. González-Sarasa Hernáez, Tipología editorial del impreso antiguo español, thesis Universidad Complutense de Madrid (2013), 443-445 (‘Abecedario’), 446-452 (‘Cartilla’). https://eprints.ucm.es/id/eprint/24020/

C. Juanéda-Albarède, Cent ans de méthodes de lecture (Paris: A. Michel, 1998).

J. ter Linden, A. de Vries, D. Welsink, A is een aapje. Opstellen over ABC-boeken van de vijftiende eeuw tot heden (Amsterdam: Querido, 1995).

M.-P. Litaudon, Les abécédaires de l’enfance: verbe et image (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2014)

M.-P. Litaudon and M. Manson, ‘Abécédaires’, in: I. Nières-Chevrel and J. Perrot (eds.), Dictionnaire du livre de jeunesse: la littérature d’enfance et de jeunesse en France (Paris: Electre-Editions du Cercle de la librairie, 2013).

S. Le Men, Les abécédaires: lettres, mots, images (Poitiers: Futuroscope, 2012).

S. Le Men, Les abécédaires français illustrés du XIXe siècle (Paris: Promodis, 1984).

A. Messerli, R. Chartier (eds.), Lesen und Schreiben in Europa, 1500-1900: vergleichende Perspektiven (Basel: Schwabe & Co., 2000). 

Newsletters of the Reading Primers Special Interest Group, Augsburg University, https://www.uni-augsburg.de/en/fakultaet/philsoz/fakultat/pedagogy/news/reading-primers-special-interest-group/

P. Rueda Ramírez, ‘Las cartillas para aprender a leer: la circulación de un texto escolar en Latinoamérica’, Cultura escrita & sociedad 11 (2010), 15-42. 

W. Sroka, ‘Research on the History of Reading Primers: A Call for Enhanced Cross-Border Cooperation’, History of Education and Children’s Literature IX / 2 (2014), 221-231.

W. Sroka, ‘Fibeln und Fibel-Forschung in Europa – Eine Annäherung‘, Bildung und Erziehung 64:1 (2011), 23-38.

G. Teistler, Fibel-Findbuch “Fi-Fi”: Deutschsprachige Fibeln von den Anfängen bis 1944; eine Bibliographie (Osnabrück: Wenner, 2003).

A. Willemsen, Back to the Schoolyard. The Daily Practice of Medieval and Renaissance Education (Turnhout: Brepols, 2008), 54-55.