Commentary
If students don’t learn how to read, not much else that happens at school is going to matter.
It’s a harsh statement, but a true one. Any student who leaves school without the ability to read effectively will struggle to get ahead in virtually all aspects of life.
That’s because reading is a foundational skill. Whether you want to learn how to fix a car engine, order a meal in a restaurant, or write a report for your boss, you need to be able to read.
Ironically, the importance of reading led many educators to make a critical mistake: they assumed that reading was a transferable skill. Entire reading programs were established that treated reading as a skill that worked independently of any specific content….