Oh, the places you’ll go!
Having read a Hearst Media Connecticut story in February headlined, “Reading instruction has become hottest debate in Connecticut education,” I decided to check in and see what all the fuss was about. I did a little poking into phonics-based reading, which is also called “the science of reading,” that is at the heart of the debate.
My nascent investigation, if you can call it that, was not much fun, so instead I decided to pay a visit to Dr. Seuss.
That’s where the fun is. Dr. Seuss’s work is full of rhyme and rhythm and repetition, and while that’s poetry, and while some people find poetry boring, Dr. Seuss’s poetry is not boring. It’s fresh and original and makes the familiar different and exciting.
I’m interested in how people learn to read because I can’t remember with any specificity how I learned to read. I can remember reading books that helped me recognize the magic reading uncovers, the endless worlds it opens to the reader, but I can’t remember actually learning to read.
Yes, the alphabet was on the chalk board in my grade school. Yes, we read “see Spot run” or whatever it is. And, emphatically, yes, I was among the very fortunate in the world to have been read to, a lot, by grownups, mostly my parents. The great challenge of battling illiteracy is this context, just as reading grows through generations so does not reading. Giving a child a book is a good move, but sitting down to read it with them is an even better move.
“The Cat in the Hat” is one of my favorites from childhood. A less common favorite might be “The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cummins,” which despite having a lot more text to it that the more typical Seuss works had a charm I couldn’t resist. The little fellow has to take his hat off in deference to the king, but every time he does another hat appears on his head. I suppose if you wanted to get psychological about it you could say it reflects a child’s anxiety about getting along in the adult world, or getting along with others in general. There’s a bully in that story.
“The Cat in the Hat” is about how much fun it is to make a mess, but also about how that runs against the desire to not get your parents bent out of shape. Thing One and Thing Two play essential roles, as you might recall.
While it’s not in Connecticut, a museum devoted to Dr. Seuss is about as close as it gets. The Amazing World of
Dr. Seuss Museum, which opened in 2017, is part of a set of five museums in Springfield, Mass..
At first I wondered if in going to the museum I would want a child to come along to help measure the experience. But a few years ago I visited, absent the company of children, the England home of Rudyard Kipling, also the author of a famous work for children, “The Jungle Book.” So I figured when it came to Dr. Seuss, why not?
The Seuss museum
The Seuss museum turns out to be fun for those of any temporal longevity
turns out to be fun for those of any longevity, and if you like the books you’ll like the rooms. The entry hall lures you to Mulberry Street, and the walls are illustrations from some other familiar Seuss works, including “Yertle the Turtle” and “One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish.” The titles alone give you an indication of the ingredients behind the Seuss magic; the rhyming, the repetition, the pure fun with language.
On one wall there are video screens highlighting the alphabet, a lot more interesting than the chalk letters I stared at in grade school: “What begins with T? Ten tired turtles on a tuttle-tuttle tree.”
The museum is not in Springfield by accident. It’s where Theodor Geisel, the phenomenally creative person who became Dr. Seuss, grew up. There’s a museum gallery devoted to Young Ted In Springfield, and a replica of the childhood home on Fairfield Street.
The Cat in the Hat is also el gato en el sombrero, with Spanish holding equal footing in exhibit displays.
One of my favorite passages in all of literature is from “One Fish”: “From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere!” It pretty much sums up the museum.
Now that I’ve had some fun, I suppose I can get back to figuring out how kids learn to read.