How to Read a Book, Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Elementary Reading

Elementary reading is the most basic level, so the authors spent a bit of time talking about efforts in the United States to promote literacy. Based on their description of how "Public officials have declared that the 1970's will be the 'decade of reading'," I was a bit surprised when I checked and the number of illiterate people over age 14 in the US in 1969 was only one percent. By 1979 that number had dropped to six tenths of one percent. When compared to the population, that means about 2,032,119 people over age fourteen couldn't read in 1969 and that dropped to about 1,359,275 by 1979.

They then spent a couple of pages on the history of elementary education, followed by a discussion of the stages of instruction, beginning with "reading readiness" and continuing through "sight words" and "context clues", to mature skills that allow the reader to compare the views of different writers. The authors suggested that although they may not be considered illiterate, many readers never achieve this final stage. More than half the entering freshmen at City University of New York, they said, required a remedial reading class in 1971. Mastering the four stages of elementary reading, they said, is a prerequisite of the first level of the reading process they will describe. They assumed that their audience was capable of reading at this level, so this review was apparently directed at parents who may want to begin teaching their children.

I sympathize with their frustration that "One should not have to spend four years in graduate school to learn how to read"! They recognized that an educated public is necessary to sustain a democracy and although they said they wanted to avoid excessive carping, they concluded by calling attention to the increasing competitiveness of the modern world, announcing "We must become a nation of truly competent readers, recognizing all that the word competent implies. Nothing else will satisfy the needs of the world that is coming."