What is the reason so many kids are struggling with reading?
I have found the biggest reason is because many kids don’t really understand how words are put together or even how our whole language is put together. Basically they haven’t figured out how we write down the words we say. Some kids figure out the code on their own. They can read and understand for themselves. The ones who haven’t figured it out continue to struggle and can’t keep up. So you’re saying the reading systems currently being used in most schools are . . . inadequate. Very inadequate, particularly for the at-risk students. What systems are being used in our schools? We used to teach reading out of the basal readers, which were little groups of stories with a controlled vocabulary, not written the way we talk. The kids answered questions about what they read by filling in answers on worksheets. What we’ve been working on in the last ten years is more of a total language approach to reading. Reading is only one part of our total language approach. We also have listening, speak
