Reading Between and Beyond the Lines

Abstract

Rather than be bound by traditional assumptions about reading—e.g., that learning to read is a difficult task for a child and counter to his natural learning processes—we should view reading holistically. A child’s earliest attempts at handling visible language symbols parallel his earliest efforts to speak and to listen, and these attempts emerge naturally as a part of normal human development. We can teach reading only indirectly. Our efforts should nurture the spontaneous nature of language learning and should provide the climate and opportunity for a child to write and to read in the broadest possible context—including the "reading" of symbols, gestures, works of art, etc.