The End of Reading Rainbow

[fclbrokle]

I've written before --- in an entry that, embarrassingly enough, I cannot find --- about how a classroom might be different if students were pursuing reading because they loved reading, rather than because the reading was required for class. It's an interesting question: is it worth sacrificing the exposure to established great literature in order

Comments

[gnibbles]

Is it somehow a poor reflection on me that I never bothered to ask why I was learning any of this stuff?

[fclbrokle]

Not necessarily! A more important question is if your teachers asked themselves. (To which the answer may very well be yes --- I don't know the circumstances of your education. :))

[hahafaha]

Let's ask instead: should we even be focused on building a love of reading, or should we just think about making sure kids know how to read in the first place?

So, there is a really interesting point here, that I think you didn't address. In both cases, we should really start by asking ourselves why we want kids to know how to read in the first place.

Of course, some literacy is necessary to survive in the modern world. Street signs, maps, menus, etc. all require some basic capacity to read. But if this is the only reason, we could have English be a one-year course taught in a way similar to the way introductions to foreign languages are often taught

[fclbrokle]

This is an excellent question. Let me start off with something that's not really to your point: regardless of if people should appreciate the written word, I don't think a one-year course would come close to satisfying what we want. Because we want schools, especially at a young age, to equip students for whatever course they decide for in the future, they need to be able to read quickly and absorb information; it's still much faster to read than to listen. Similarly, if we aspire to well-educated citizens that can vote intelligently (remember, I'm saying if we aspire to it regardless of our achievement), we need citizens who can read about issues that are important to them, because again, reading is faster than other forms of learning

[hahafaha]

So, I should preface this with a reiteration that I agree with you, and my question was open-ended contemplation, not challenge. I am not advocating for the obsoleteness of books!

But I don't think that the low quality of film adaptations is, by itself, sufficient to justify fiction, because there is this immediate challenge to figure out what makes a film adaptation bad and to fix it. There must be something else, something about the word itself that makes books worth reading.

[hahafaha]

Aside from things like the major differences (and, while a movie being "different" from a book is not necessarily worse, it's also not necessarily better), one thing I think is important about reading, that you don't tend to get from movies and such forms, is the ability to imagine the world. One of the reasons I love sci-fi and fantasy, as a genre, isn't even always the stories themselves, but the ability to take a world that someone else has created and (often even in the middle of the story) have my own adventures within it. I know it's not directly related to the everyday necessity of reading, but I think imagination is a crucial element to childhood, learning, and excitement.

[easwaran]

Regarding a point you made at the end of that last comment, I've often wondered, why is it important for people to enjoy literary reading, or fiction? Or even to read it, much less enjoy it

[gaussjordan]

On a partly related note, when I was young I first learned to read so that I could read computer game manuals.