Summarize the reading (below) on American schools and readin…
Summarize the reading (below) on American schools and reading. Your summary should be approximately five grammatically complete sentences. Check the grammar carefully. ************************************************************ Why do American schools fail to create lifetime readers? There are two basic related “facts of life” that parents and educators seem to ignore. The first fact is that human beings are pleasure-centered. We will voluntarily do over and over and over that which brings us pleasure. For example, we go to the restaurants we like, order the foods we like, listen to the radio stations that play the music we like, and visit the relatives we like. Conversely, we avoid restaurants, foods, music, and relatives we dislike. What does this pleasure principle have to do with reading? Children love stories, so every time we read to a child at home or at school, we send a “pleasure” message to the child’s brain. You could even call it a commercial, conditioning the child to associate books and print with pleasure. However, all too often, parents don’t read to their children; and, to make matters worse, schools send “unpleasure” messages about reading. Endless hours of worksheets, intensive phonics instruction, and seemingly unconnected test questions can be—to a child—tedious or boring, threatening, and meaningless. If a child seldom experiences the “pleasures” of reading at home and meets only the “unpleasures” at school, then the natural reaction will be avoidance. The second basic fact is that reading is an accrued skill. In other words, reading is like riding a bicycle, driving a car, or sewing; in order to get better at it, you must do it. And the more you do it, the better you get at it. The last twenty-five years of reading research confirms this simple formula. Regardless of sex, race, nationality, or socioeconomic background, the students who read the most are the ones who read the best, achieve the most, and stay in school the longest. In contrast, those who don’t read much cannot get better at it. And most Americans (children and adults) don’t read much, and therefore aren’t very good at it. Why don’t Americans read much? The reason is that a lack of “pleasure” messages in the home, coupled with the large number of “unpleasure” messages about reading they received throughout their school years, nullifies any attraction a book might offer. They avoid books and print the same way a cat avoids a rocking chair.