Evening star., 1940-02-09
Reading Must
Be Learned
Properly
Recognizing Words
Is Not Sufficient
For Education
BY ANGELO PATRI.

Reading Is the basic factor in
education. Any intelligent person
who has learned to read can edu-
cate himself. But he must be able
to read. That is an ability too often
taken for granted. One sees child
reading a book and concludes that
he can read. Maybe he can. But
maybe he cannot, and that doubt
is we'll grounded in the sad fact
that many children who read books
cannot really read.
The reason for reading is the
content of the printed words. There
are many readers who can pro-
nounce the words correctly but who,
after pronouncing them, have n0t
caught the meaning that is in them.
Try that out some time. Ask high
school student of ordinary standing
to read an editorial in any daily
newspaper and then to write out
what it told him. If he Is able to
do this he reads well. If he is un-
able, he cannot, for educational
purposes read at all.
This lack Of reading ability is the
bane of the teachers lives in all
upper schools. That the students
do not know how to study is their
common lament. This is true. The
student cannot study with ease and
economy of effort because they do
not know how to read a text. ,
Nobody is to blame for this un-
less it is the whole community
Children began to learn to read in
their first term in school. Here
they learn to recognize some two
hundred or more words. They call
them over in reading a story. They
know most of them by location in
the sentence or on the page, and
the pictures help too. For three
years they learn to read this way
and by the fourth year it is gener-
ally taken for granted that they
know how to read. They do not.
They know how to recognize words
but unless emphasis has been placed
upon the content of those words
they get little out of it.
This emphasis should be put on
all reading from the fourth school
year forward. No child should read
without stating the contents of
what he has just read. Stories are
the best medium for this work be-
cause the child can get the meaning
Of a story when he cannot dig out
the contents of an international
article.
The younger child needs stories.
AS the children advance these stor-
les are directed toward the liter
ature, history and science of the
curriculum and so become valuable
supplements to the study hours.
AS soon as child has text he
should be taught to read it for the
purpose of getting knowledge from
it. Please notice that reading for
readings sake and reading for in
formation are two different activ-
tiles. One is for pleasure and
should be given its due, and no
more. The other is the tool with
which child digs out his educa-
ton and it must be fitted for his
mind by daily classroom practice.
There is no sense in sending chill
dren home with texts and the direc-
ton to learn the next 10 pages. First
those pages must be read in the
study fashion, for information. Here
the children are trained to nick out
the points that are important and
to ignore the rest. They must learn
what to skip and what to read
intensively. And they must learn
how to take notes. This is the
legitimate reading lesson in all
elementary and first grades in high
school. All other subjects must de-
pend upon mastery reading. Let's
teach it.