A little light reading
The average high school student reads books on a fifth-grade level, according to a comprehensive survey whose findings point to why American teenagers lag so badly in literacy and knowledge. The kids are victims of an educational philosophy that calls for encouraging them to read whatever they like no matter how lacking the books are in intellectual or instructional heft.
They neither grow nor learn as much as they should. And they certainly will not meet higher standards being imposed across the country, including in New York, with the introduction of socalled Common Core learning.
According to a study called “What Kids Are Reading,” high schoolers should be tackling nonfiction works like David Mccullough’s “1776,” a history of America’s founding; “Don Quixote,” Cervantes’ groundbreaking 17th century novel, and Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales,” one of the founding texts of English literature.
University of Arkansas education Prof. Sandra Stotsky aptly wrote in the report:
“The Republic cannot flourish in the 21st cen- tury, no matter how much time English or reading teachers spend teaching ‘21st century skills’ . . . if the bulk of our population is reading at or below the fifth-grade level.”
Unfortunately, wrongheadedness prevails. Consider the thinking expressed by Dan Gutman, author of “The Kid Who Ran for President” and “The Million Dollar Shot.” Encapsulating much, he said in the report’s foreword:
“I have a confession to make. I don’t like Shakespeare ... I never made it through ‘Madame Bovary,’ ‘ Don Quixote,’ ‘Wuthering Heights’ or ‘Ulysses.’ I thought ‘The Great Gatsby’ was dull. . . . I have never read Dickens, Tolstoy, Melville, Proust, Jane Austen, Edith Wharton or Victor Hugo. . . . I think the answer to the question ‘What should kids be reading?’ is, ‘Whatever they want.’ ”
As for what kids are reading, the report found “The Hunger Games” to be the most popular book for ninth- through 12th-graders, followed not far behind by “Twilight” and “Harry Potter.” Nothing against those books — they’re great fun. But they’re not going to get anyone into college.