Reading Rainbow in its last season...A TRAGEDY

After 26 years on the air Reading Rainbow is coming to an end and I literally gasped when I found out. Reading Rainbow was not an ordinary show, it introduced me to the love of stories and their ability to transport me to wherever I'd like to go. As I read over at Jezebel and I have to agree, the show didn't teach how to read but why you should read.

In this age of NCLB we will not see what damage the focus on reading skills and not reading for pleasure will do until it is far too late. Qualities such as creativity and imagination are not easily measured, but they are just as important, if not more important, than calculus and physics when you're designing a new building. Not to mention the fact that when you suck the joy from learning the motivation for learning is sapped as well.

The show's run is ending, Grant explains, because no one — not the station, not PBS, not the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — will put up the several hundred thousand dollars needed to renew the show's broadcast rights.

Grant says the funding crunch is partially to blame, but the decision to end Reading Rainbow can also be traced to a shift in the philosophy of educational television programming. The change started with the Department of Education under the Bush administration, he explains, which wanted to see a much heavier focus on the basic tools of reading — like phonics and spelling.

Grant says that PBS, CPB and the Department of Education put significant funding toward programming that would teach kids how to read — but that's not what Reading Rainbow was trying to do.

"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." Source

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.

I anticipate an increase in drop out rates along with an increase in test scores. Just because someone knows how to do something doesn't not necessarily mean that they will continue to do it.

I really am concerned for kids who don't have engaged and thoughtful parents with the time to focus on their literacy, and that includes a great number of children.