Issues with Reading

In the essay “Time for Reading” Water’s is talking about how people don’t appreciate reading. He talks about how teachers and professors are using different methods of reading to get around the basic concept of reading which is to just open a book and read it.

For example he talks about a new reading method made up by Franco Moretti called “distant learning” in which he suggests that reading is just for lower class workers and not for scholars. Water’s uses this example to show how people don’t think reading is important to everybody and to show how many people are trying to get around reading.

He then goes on to talk about how children are learning to read at a faster pace because teachers are using different methods to teach children how to read and how they are not taking the time to teach in depth reading skills.

I agree with Water’s on many of his points. I think that so many people lack the basic concept of reading because they were not taught properly in school to do so. I also think that the reading process should be slowed down so every child can be on the same levels of reading. I am not saying teachers should stop the whole class from learning to read on the count of one or two children not being able to read but a teacher should seek extra help for the child not just look over their problems with reading so that they can just finish their lesson plans. Also I do not feel that reading is just for lower class people. Reading is a basic skill that all people should have. So I feel for Moretti to make a statement like that shows a sign of ignorance.

That leads me to ask, do you think children are being taught to read properly and do you think that reading should just be for a certain class of people?