I’m sad to see that Reading Rainbow is ending. It is one of the best shows on PBS, the best children’s show. John Grant, director of content at WNED which produced the show, said that the cancellation is due to a shift in policy to how to read rather than teaching the love of reading. I agree. I have seen nationwide a dumbing down of the reading process. I think this is the wrong way to go. Consider this, it doesn’t take very long to teach phonics. Kids usually can handle this fine. The problem comes in trying to help kids put words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs together. This is much more complex and needs to happen quickly enough to understand the content. It’s a step each child has to take himself/herself. In order for that to happen, there has to be sufficient motivation to undertake the difficulty. In other words, the child must be interested in the content. With sufficient interest children will challenge themselves beyond adults’ expectations. Reading Rainbow supplies that interest for the very young.

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009 at 5:24 am. Both comments and pings are currently closed.