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The NEA’s Approach to Encourage More Reading: Like Dealing with Hunger by Hosting Wine-Tasting Parties
Ohanian Comment: No one takes children's reading as seriously, or with as much good common sense and sound research, as Stephen Krashen.
by Stephen Krashen
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has come up with a bad solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. Convinced that Americans are reading less (not so) and reading worse (not so), the NEA will spend nine million dollars next year on The Big Read, a book of the month club in which readers will be encouraged to read and discuss the same book, a book from a list chosen by a committee of elites (including poets, novelists, and the Librarian of Congress). Communities can apply for grants to participate. The winners get five to twenty thousand dollars, which includes reader’s, teacher’s and audio guides to each novel, and publicity material (posters, banners and bookmarks).
The Big Read does nothing to address the real problem: Lack of access to books for children of poverty. Research overwhelmingly concludes that we don’t need to convince people to read: We need to make books available.
There is no evidence that community reading programs such as The Big Read have ever worked. There is, however, plenty of evidence that those with access to more books read more and read better.
But even if community reading programs did work, the books are all wrong. According to the NEA, one of The Big Read’s major target groups of reluctant readers is adolescent males. I suspect that few teenage boys will be interested reading and participating in discussion groups about books such as Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, or Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich.
I’ve read some of the books on the list and I agree that some of them are terrific. But they are not the kind of reading that get reluctant readers hooked on books. The NEA clearly did not consult the extensive literature on adolescent reading, and I doubt that they talked to many teenage boys. They are also clearly not aware of the importance of self-selection in reading.
The Big Read is like dealing with hunger by having wine tasting parties.
— Stephen Krashen
The Pulse: Education's Place for Debate
2008-01-03
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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