Say it ain't so, Reading Rainbow! Options

[mipadi]

Reading Rainbow, the show that taught us why reading is friggin' awesome, is going off the air today.

What struck me most about the article was this:

Grant says that PBS, CPB and the Department of Education put significant funding toward programming that would teach kids how to read -- but that's not what Reading Rainbow was trying to do.

"Reading Rainbow taught kids why to read," Grant says. "You know, the love of reading -- [the show] encouraged kids to pick up a book and to read."

Linda Simensky, vice president for children's programming at PBS, says that when Reading Rainbow was developed in the early 1980s, it was an era when the question was: "How do we get kids to read books?"

Since then, she explains, research has shown that teaching the mechanics of reading should be the network's priority.

"We've been able to identify the earliest steps that we need to take," Simensky says. "Now we know what we need to do first. Even just from five years ago, I think we all know so much more about how to use television to teach."

Does anyone else think this is a bit backwards, and maybe we had it right back in the 80s? Won't kids want to learn how to read if you convince them that they should want to learn how to read?

[Amaranthus]

But I liked Kunta Kinte!!

PBS is for old people anyways.