Reading Lessons: The Debate over Literacy Hardcover - 1998

From the publisher

How children are taught to read and how well they learn are matters once easily agreed on but now among the most explosive in the United States -- and for good reason. More than twenty-three million American adults are totally or functionally illiterate. Teachers, business leaders, parents, and politicians decry this appalling situation, but most of the literacy expertise gives little attention to the beneficial or damaging effects that different forms of instruction and different kinds of literacy have on how children live and think.In this hard-hitting and timely study, Gerald Coles shows exactly how today's preferred methods of reading instruction (usually classified into two opposing camps, phonics versus whole language) not only fail the children who never learn to read and write, but also damage the thinking and behavior of most who do. Moreover, Coles demonstrates that the very terms of today's arguments about learning are flawed; he urges Americans to worry more about politics, economics, and power in our unequal land and less about the one best way to teach reading. Only when teachers, parents, activists, and politicians work together to attack literacy problems at their societal roots will education truly improve our nation.