[caption id="attachment_4365" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Books"]
[/caption]Carol Forsloff - Years ago a man by the name of Rudolph Flesch, worried that his own son struggled with reading, wrote a book made that set off a
national discussion on Why Johnny Can't Read. The problem continues more than 50 years later.
This
was the dilemma teachers talked about in the late 1960's and early
1970's as I completed graduate school, with a focus on teaching young
people to read. The failure of the educational system in teaching those
"Johnnys" to read became the stimulus for folks like me to forge new
paths in reading. So there came a plethora of teaching methods and
ideas in response to that failure, even as there are concerns expressed
in 2010 with the failures of our children and young adults to read and
comprehend.
While there is more reading material available in
2010, the complaint these days is people are reading less. Books
languish on bookshelves of bookstores everywhere. They gather dust on
family tables and are the items often taken in bundles to Goodwill when
a family member dies.
The advancement of technology means more
books available to read, with large capacity for book storage; but
reading is no longer fundamental. But why?
The problem is not
one of availability; it is what we value today. We value information,
but like everything else it is quick. We get our news from Facebook
and Twitter and that's our water cooler conversation. We scan
information on Internet sites, we read titles on television screens.
But we don't read the whole of information and therefore miss out on
the real substance of the material in my observation, as one of those
old style teachers who believed that there was more to reading than
reading words by rote. Publishers worry about that as well.
and Facebook remain at the helm, driving the nation's language through
its social media and interaction. The fellow down the street with a
camera in tow becomes the source of news, not just for your town but
the nation as well, with enough of a popular vote. But he too gets
thumbs up without reading or listening or a serious look, as words just
go speedily by.
Education Nation has proclaimed reading as
fundamental, but it isn't fundamental anymore with the whole of
material digested, but a digest instead that is in a string of letters
or words across a screen, moving quickly so we can get onto the next
big thing.
The problem is the next big thing will be missed, as
we need information in wholes not just bits and bytes here and there.
That's reading comprehension that goes with understanding complex ideas
we need to understand. We need to understand new legislation like the
health care bill or even instructions on how to take care of everyday
problems. When we don't comprehend what we read, the necessary
information for making good decisions will be missed in the desire to
have a new friend or be liked.
The dilemma for reading remains as it was years ago, why Johnny and you cannot read.
Years
ago a man, worried that his son was falling behind in reading, wrote a
book that blasted the educational system and pointed out why children
weren't reading well. It is the kind of book that could be written
about today's children and adults.
