Reading is one of the most important parts of education, especially in younger grades. There’s a reason why the old saying goes: ‘reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic.’ Notice how reading is first. Also notice how the word for math is abbreviated.
Plenty of colleges and universities offer entire degrees based around reading education. Scholars dedicate their careers to studying more effective methods of teaching reading. Entire books (much bigger than this one) have been written on the subject.
Students who fall behind in reading often fall behind in other subjects. Studying science and history are just more difficult when you can’t read effectively from your textbook or from the classroom chalkboard. Reading is the core foundation of an effective education.
The skill of reading is complex. It involves many moving parts in the brain. In her 1990 book Beginning to Read, Marilyn Adams compares reading to running a car. Not only do you have to build the car, you’ve also got to maintain all of the moving parts. Not to mention, learn how to drive it. Plus, make sure that your car has plenty of fuel to keep running.
Similarly, teaching a student how to read is a complex process. There’s a reason why some teachers just specialize in reading and language education. Teaching reading is a two-way process—meaning that the students have to be involved in their own education. Allowing them to have input on the books they read can help to engage them in the learning process.
Much like other subject, reading education builds on itself overtime. Students must learn the alphabet, before recognizing full words. Then, they have to understand the grammatical structure of a sentence. That’s before moving on to being able to read and write full paragraphs and pages.
Despite the proliferation of reading in education, 33% of high school graduates and 42% of college graduates never read another book after graduation. Perhaps this is because students see reading as an obligation in the classroom and discard it once they are no longer required to read.
Educator Alvin Irby is seeking to change his community and culture through reading and his nonprofit, Barbershop Books. As Alvin said in his 2017 TED Talk: “Dismantling the savage inequalities that plague American education requires us to create reading experiences that inspire all children to say three words: I’m a reader.”
This demonstrates that while reading is best taught by professional educators, it’s still a team effort. A life-long love of reading is best fostered at home by parents and guardians. And children that struggle to read need help not only from specialists, but also from friends and family.
The Cat in the Hat was originally written as a reading primer. Green Eggs and Ham was also written by Dr. Seuss as a bet that he couldn’t write a book with only 50 words. No word on whether or not Horton and the Whos are secretly literacy advocates.