READING WITHOUT DICK AND JANE

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It is exactly ten years since Flesch's Why Johnny Can't Read indicted the techniques and the textbooks in the schools today which have promoted illiteracy and then made a brief for the introduction of phonics from the beginning. Mr. Trace, who also wrote What Ivan Knows That Johnny Doesn't (1961) and a series of corrective primers, is saying exactly the same thing and except for more current figures, hasn't amplified the argument. His LOOK MOM LOOK expose covers the ""epidemic proportions"" which the ""inability to read.. has reached""; he examines at some length the impoverished basal readers and the ""programmed retardation"" they promote; gives a little supplementary reading on McGuffey and other early American primers; and unhesitatingly concludes that ""the reading program in American schools is about as bad as it can get,"" Conant and others to the contrary.... Even a speed reader will find that Mr. Trace is repetitive, but maybe imitation- of Dick and Jane- is the sincerest form of contempt.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Regnery

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1965

Categories: NONFICTION