(Author’s Note: This was my very first blog post that I published back in September 2009.)
I can’t believe it but the last episode of this wonderful show aired on August 28, 2009. I can still remember, in vivid detail, the old theme song for the show with the butterfly flying around, bringing objects to life. This was one of the main staples, of my television watching time when I was a kid, along with Sesame Street, Mister Rogers Neighborhood, and a couple of cartoons. My favorite episode, of course, was when Levar Burton, the show’s host, did an episode which involved Star Trek: The Next Generation. Of course I’m also a big fan of Star Trek, but I digress.
Now while I am sad that this show is no more, I am very angry at the circumstances for which it is no longer on. According to this article the reason why Reading Rainbow wasn’t renewed is that there has been “a shift in the philosophy of educational television programming.” What this “shift” means is that stations, such as PBS, are focusing more on providing shows that teach kids how to read instead of why which was what Reading Rainbow focused on: this is what sickens me. Has our nation’s youth become so stupid that a show like Reading Rainbow is no longer viable because kids don’t know how to read anymore? What has happened to our educational system that would make television networks pick up the banner, of education, and do what our schools should be doing in the first place?
So I did a little web surfing trying to find out statistics of the literacy rate of teens nowadays. During my search I found an article over at the New York Times which stated that,
“The results found that the reading skills of 12th graders tested in 2005 were significantly worse than those of students in 1992…
The share of students lacking even basic high school reading skills — meaning they could not, for example, extract data about train fares at different times of day from a brochure — rose to 27 from 20 percent in 1992. The share of those proficient in reading dropped to 35 from 40 percent in 1992. At the same time, the gap between boys and girls grew, with girls’ reading skills more than a year ahead of those of boys.”
More power to all you ladies out there!
Now I am assuming that these kids reading skills are equal to their grade level. At least that is what I hope. But I remember when I was in High School, I attended High School from 1996 to 2000(class of 2000 suckers!), that most of the kids couldn’t even read at their grade level. Whenever my classmates had to read out loud they sounded as if they were reading at a fifth-grade level. The constant stuttering and the multiple pauses were enough to get me annoyed that I started to volunteer just to get things moving along. Aside from that I can only think of two other kids, in a class of 25, which could read at their level or beyond. So that would be 8% of the class who could read at their level. Of course this is just an isolated incident but I can’t help but wonder at the validity of the results from the aforementioned statistics.
I’m sure some of you, by this time, are screaming at the monitor, as you read this, shouting out, “But what about all the kids who read Harry Potter or the Twilight series?” My response is this. JK Rowling is an average author who stumbled upon a formula and created some likeable characters that worked. My biggest disappointment came in the form of the final book Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, but I will go into that in a later post. Stephanie Meyer, from what I have heard, is even less then average. I must admit that I haven’t read any of her books, but an acquaintance, whose opinion I value highly, told me of the first two books. Suffice to say that this acquaintance found the books to be a waste of time and couldn’t read any more. In his words he described her books as “searching through vomit to find the letters in the alphabet soup.” So to this day I have avoided them like the plague. But that brings up another question. Because of the decline of reading skills will this also lead to a rise in average/poor authors, publishing books, and even fewer exceptional authors who will go unnoticed because people will be unable to enjoy their books? But that is a question for another day and this rant of mine needs to move on.
So what has caused this decline of reading skills that we are seeing daily? Is it the kids’ home environment, the media, and/or the educational system? Personally I believe it is all three of these factors that have contributed, and still continue to contribute, to the decline of our nation’s reading skills. Now what I mean by home environment is along the lines of parents contributing to their child’s reading skills. I remember, before I even went to school, knowing my ABCs and knowing how to read simple words. Why was this? Because I was fortunate to have a mother who would spend time teaching me my ABCs, also some basic math, as well as sit down and read books in front of me so I could follow along. How often did your parents do the same for you? These days parents seem to let their kids watch television and play games instead of sitting down with them and reading a good book. It is because of parents letting their kids watch TV and playing video games, at even younger ages than before, that we seem to have a decline of reading skills.
So with parents failing to take time out to spend time reading with their kids this, seamlessly, leads us to the next culprit: the media. Thanks to television and video games kids have garnered a sense of instant gratification and constant entertainment that would naturally lead them to think that books are boring. Why read a book now when you can watch a movie instead and not have to spend hours reading a book and envisioning the story in your own mind? Now while I was trying to find some information I did happen to stumble across this article that certainly made a good argument of the media affecting children’s reading skills and was impressed on this person’s view in regards to a change in the child’s expectations.
“We allow children to view excessive amounts of media for long hours from increasingly early ages. These experiences seem to have led them to expect everything they see, hear, and need to learn to be embedded in increasingly exciting levels of entertainment.”
Because of this shift in the child’s expectation of how things should progress I can certainly see why a child would find reading to be boring and not want to pick up a book. So now, with this perception, how can a child be expected to learn in school? Once again, while reading through the same article, I found that this author had an answer to the question.
“Kids expect, erroneously, to be entertained, which they will not be at school (though unfortunately, pressures are on to change even that) or in the workplace. Academic learning becomes troublesome, because for many kids, schoolwork does not muster the level of excitement necessary to sustain their attention. It is too boring, too slow, too hard, too much. Their brains, raised on a diet of fast paced TV, video games, and other media in front of which they can easily “tune out”, just can’t adapt.”
Well put and certainly something that should be looked into. But, personally, when I was in school, I had the habit of zoning out because I was bored with most of the stuff being taught. Occasionally I would have the rare teacher who could make things interesting because they had an energy and willingness to teach us. That or it was a subject I liked such as History, PE, and English. But, then again, I didn’t watch television or play video games that much. I was more into sports and books when I was younger. Nowadays its all kids seem to do so that teachers must have a much harder time trying to teach the kids. This could be why we have had “a shift in the philosophy of educational television programming.” Because network executives think that this could be the perfect opportunity to get kids at an earlier age. Let the parents have the kids’ watch educational programming and hope for the best. But what if this is just adding to the issue of declining reading skills?
I am by no means an expert on this. All I have to go on is my own personal experience as well as the information and views that I have come across on the internet. All I do know is that this has led to the cancellation of a great show that should not have been dropped at all. Children will be all the poorer for missing out on this fantastic show. And for those of you who might get the impression that this is a post for people to be against television and video games then you are missing the point. It is not that at all. I’m all for video games and television but at the right time, of a child’s development, and in moderation.
This, of course, is just my opinion and I would welcome a discussion with anyone who might think opposite of this.
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