Dumbing Down What Students Read Didn’t Make Them Any Smarter

Yesterday as today, what we call reading skills heavily influence academic achievement. They further influence the development of writing skills beyond the early years of schooling when writing is almost a transcription of a child's speech patterns. The development of reading skills, especially a reading vocabulary, and then writing skills depends largely on willing practice in reading. There are no silver bullets for a large reading vocabulary. Perhaps we can learn something by looking at what

Yesterday as today, what we call reading skills heavily influence academic achievement. They further influence the development of writing skills beyond the early years of schooling when writing is almost a transcription of a child's speech patterns. The development of reading skills, especially a reading vocabulary, and then writing skills depends largely on willing practice in reading. There are no silver bullets for a large reading vocabulary. Perhaps we can learn something by looking at what…