The comments from my last post about reading has made me think about a few other things. I often think about how people learn to read.
When I attended school in the late 40's and early 50's we had a system that was very limited. We had one room rural schools. We had people teaching with little or no training. Correspondence courses were developed but how do you expect a six year old to learn to read taking correspondence. These rural schools met their end in the late 40's and early 50's , The school I went to called Hiawatha, closed in 1955. There were 6 student enrolled in the last year. They were all boys consisting of three sets of brothers. My two brothers attended the last year.
My first year of teaching in 1958 ,was in a rural school that had nine students. It was closed the next year. I had three grade ones. One little guy knew how to read but jumped through all the hoops. The other little boy was never going to read. I think the little girl learned from my efforts.
I don't ever remember learning to read. I remember going through the work books and doing assignments but it was nothing I learned. I liked the work books.
So after all this rambling , I'm wondering about how the learning to read makes life long readers..
I think there are good programs to teach reading but do they fit all students? Do life long readers come from people who know how to read well? Or are the readers just curious people? Do life long readers find reading stimulating for a number of reasons such as entertainment?
What do you think?
