The Teaching of Reading: Recovering a Lost Art
- ISBN-10
- 0974214310
- ISBN-13
- 9780974214313
- Language
- English
- Author
- Frank G. Roberson
Description
The Teaching of Reading: Recovering a Lost Art was written in response to a question: How was it that schools in the past were so effective at teaching young children to read well in a short period of time in contrast to today's schools where an average of thirty percent of the children fail to be in possession of the necessary skills to emerge as independent readers by the end of second grade? This book recounts the historical origin of reading, how the skill was once passed on through a code of letters and sounds to slaves (by the children of their masters) who then passed it on to other plantations, and how the method was implemented under the basic tradition of mindful drill and practice in one-room schoolhouses and four-room schoolhouses up to the 1940's (when the method was challenged by new thinking and educational theories). The Teaching of Reading: Recovering a Lost Art has as its ambition to stimulate a return to a method of teaching reading that was extremely successful for hundreds of years. No child should leave second grade without at his or her command the ability to read independently. The method prescribed in this book is a start in that direction. And it is designed in a manner that teachers, parents, tutors, and various organizations (church, civic, etc.) may employ it to enhance the reading of children or any adult who desires to read.
