The End of Reading Rainbow

I’m devastated to learn that Reading Rainbow is leaving PBS because there’s no funding to renew the show’s broadcasting rights. (It is several hundred thousand dollars.) I loved watching LeVar Burton bring a book to life. I was excited to go to the library and find the books mentioned by the kids at the end of each episode. I wanted to know how to read so that I could be transported into the world of a book. In my opinion, Reading Rainbow is excellent literacy-promoting programming.

While I’m devastated Reading Rainbow will no longer be on television, I’m appalled at the underlying message for cutting the funding to this beloved program. It goes back to a shift in philosophy during the Bush administration with pressure from the Department of Education to see more of a focus on phonics and spelling. According to NPR’s report on the cancellation of the show,

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.”

Research has directed programming toward phonics and reading fundamentals as the front line of the literacy fight. Reading Rainbow occupied a more luxurious space — the show operated on the assumption that kids already had basic reading skills and instead focused on fostering a love of books.

Is your gut churning in turmoil as mine did when I first read this? “I think we all know so much more about how to use television to teach[?]” “Research has shown that teaching the mechanics of reading should be the network’s priority.” {Gasp} I’d love to sit down with Ms. Linda Simensky and go over the following with her!

Emergent literacy is defined as the set of skills children need to have before they can learn to read. In every list I’ve seen on the six emergent literacy skills, the very first skill on the list is Print Motivation. Print motivation means thinking that books and reading are pleasant. I don’t think that children need to have basic reading skills before they foster a love of reading books. They need to grow together.

All six skills need to be addressed: print motivation, print awareness, letter knowledge, vocabulary, phonological awareness, and narrative skills. Without a balanced set of skills, children will not excel when they are formally taught to read and write. The programming geared toward teaching phonics and letter recognition can work in cooperation with programs like Reading Rainbow that create pleasant feelings associated with reading. However, making reading exciting, worthwhile, and enjoyable is, in my opinion, far more important in establishing a habit of reading than teaching phonics.

According to the executive summary “To Read or Not To Read: A Question of National Consequence” from the National Endowment for the Arts (published Nov. 2007), reading for pleasure correlates strongly with academic achievement. Most notably with this finding is that voluntary readers are better readers and writers than non-readers. Not all people who have been taught the mechanics of reading will be voluntary readers. They also need to develop a love of reading. Shows like Reading Rainbow did just that. John Grant, who is in charge of content at WNED Buffalo, Reading Rainbow‘s home station had it right when he said,

“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.”

Here are some of the findings reported by the National Endowment for the Arts regarding the implications of the decline in reading.

1. Employees now rank reading and writing as the top deficiencies in new hires.
2. Good readers generally have more financially rewarding jobs.
3. Less advanced readers report fewer opportunities for career growth.
4. Good readers play a crucial role in enriching our cultural and civic life.
5. Good readers make good citizens.
6. Deficient readers are far more likely than skilled readers to be high school dropouts.
7. Deficient readers are more likely than skilled readers to be out of the workforce.
8. Poor reading skills are endemic in the prison population.

We can teach children how to read. We can drill mechanics into them through 13 years of public education, and even additional years in college. But findings show that if these students are not reading for enjoyment outside of assigned reading, they stop reading once they leave school and their reading skills actually deteriorate. They can move from the enriching, rewarding life of a skilled reader to the out of the workforce, prison population of the deficient reader.

I’d rather spend several hundred thousand dollars on Reading Rainbow‘s broadcast rights than on building more prisons to hold all the deficient readers!