Today marks the final day of "Reading Rainbow," a delightful show about reading books hosted by LeVar Burton.
A report on NPR this morning described how children's television programmers have fundamentally re-written the book on educational television shows related to reading. The new focus is simple - the mechanics: phonics, letters, etc.
My question is, what about the JOY of reading? We're ready to teach kids all about how to read, but not WHY to read. Is the point not enticing a future generation with one of the great human art forms, one of the necessities of life, one of the things that gives power to the people?
In an age when we are already seeing declines in recreational reading, business reading, and are seeing corresponding educational difficulties... why would we volunteer to neglect to demonstrate to children that reading is exciting? Have people already forgotten that movable type printing made it possible to communicate with each other in times of difficulty, and that reading was reserved before ONLY for the upper classes? It seems we are heading in that direction once again!
Of course, there must be some sort of response to this shameful course of action. Everyone who can, volunteer to read to children in some place - the local book store, daycare center, library, or community center. If no one shows a kid that reading is exciting, the chances of them discovering it on their own... are not so good.
I recall the community centers and libraries of my youth in New England. There were films, books, excitement... a place where a child would genuinely enjoy their time around books, and in books. We learned to love the written word not for the power it gave us, but for the places it took us. We had, always, a secret world at our fingertips... a secret power to travel wherever the words and our minds could take us. It is a joy we have NEVER forgotten, and whey I, personally, sit down to read today, I travel through those brambles to the mindscape within every single time.
We must help the next generation see the joy of stories.
