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Why Children Can't Read: And What We Can Do About it
Why Children Can't And what We Can do About IT McGuinness, Diane and Pinker, Steven
420 pages, Paperback
First published June 25, 1998
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
April 5, 2021
Good for explanation of writing systems through history and why children must be taught to decode to learn how to read.
Seems outdated as a summary of research. Does make a great plea for the scientific method and evidence-based practice in education.
Seems outdated as a summary of research. Does make a great plea for the scientific method and evidence-based practice in education.
August 19, 2019
Extremely interesting history of language and alphabets. I can imagine its methodologies were groundbreaking when it first came out, however in 2019, primary schools now routinely employ these through daily phonics and guided reading sessions.
May 3, 2018
Lucid, erudite, interesting; those are the words that I would use to describe “Why Our Children Can’t Read” by Diane McGuinness, Ph.D. Literacy is one of the most important things to me since I feel that the free distribution of information is essential to a well-functioning democratic government. Of course, there are situations and events that occur to put that position in doubt but as many people say, knowledge is power. Now, before I dive any further, I will say that this book is older than I thought. I don’t know how accurate a lot of the statistics still are, but I don’t think we have improved all that much. Just for reference, this book is copyright 1997, so as of this review it is 21 years old. Please bear that in mind.
The book is lucid in that Dr. McGuinness explains everything with aplomb. While first introducing the idea of literacy and her disdain for whole-word methodology in teaching reading, she also puts down phonics in some cases, seeing as how many don’t really know how to teach it as of the printing of this book. Starting out with an explanation of how writing developed in the first place was really interesting. Now, my methods of reading are shrouded in mystery since I learned to read when I was quite young. I know that in school I had Phonics since I remember doing the rhyme exercises and breaking down syllables of words. However, it seems that many people are not so lucky. The whole-word methodology of reading forces you to remember every single word possible. No child has the capacity to remember all possible words. It would be like handing a child a dictionary at the beginning of the year and expecting that child to be able to understand English completely by the end of it.
Dr. McGuinness goes over the development and processes that made up the present state of printed English. This part was really fascinating and quite scholarly. Writing is an invention made by the hands of man. Now it is not divinely inspired, or else everyone could read easily. That is my take on it. So we go over the history of writing itself starting with the Sumerians. We know a great deal about the Sumerians and their writing since they wrote everything on these clay tablets. Some of the writing is almost impossible to decipher, but most of it is made up of bills of sale, legal documents, grain storage and other such minutiae. Over time, the Sumerians figured out some shortcuts to their writing. Skipping a few steps, we arrive at the English Language with its 26-letter alphabet. Of course, English has issues that come from being relatively old and from having a weird system of grammar and spelling.
Now, from what I understand, English is a horribly difficult language to reach proficiency in. We have so many homophones and letters that can make multiple sounds and weird words from before they invented spelling and so on. The basic idea of all languages is that the combination of letters represent sounds. At least, that is the case in English. In order to read proficiently, it is important to “hear” all of those sounds when you read. The issue here is that many people neglect to do this. Some people just can’t hear the phonemes of the written word. I have heard that slowing the word down works, but you have to really slow it down to enunciate each sound.
I could go on and on with piling praise on this book, but this review is getting a bit lengthy so I will say that the section that describes the solution is also quite informative, putting forward a curriculum that will help your child to learn to read. All in all, this book was phenomenal. It was enjoyable and fascinating, a combination that is difficult to beat.
I would really like to find information on the current state of literacy in my country or even in my local community, but a Google Search turned up nothing of note.
The book is lucid in that Dr. McGuinness explains everything with aplomb. While first introducing the idea of literacy and her disdain for whole-word methodology in teaching reading, she also puts down phonics in some cases, seeing as how many don’t really know how to teach it as of the printing of this book. Starting out with an explanation of how writing developed in the first place was really interesting. Now, my methods of reading are shrouded in mystery since I learned to read when I was quite young. I know that in school I had Phonics since I remember doing the rhyme exercises and breaking down syllables of words. However, it seems that many people are not so lucky. The whole-word methodology of reading forces you to remember every single word possible. No child has the capacity to remember all possible words. It would be like handing a child a dictionary at the beginning of the year and expecting that child to be able to understand English completely by the end of it.
Dr. McGuinness goes over the development and processes that made up the present state of printed English. This part was really fascinating and quite scholarly. Writing is an invention made by the hands of man. Now it is not divinely inspired, or else everyone could read easily. That is my take on it. So we go over the history of writing itself starting with the Sumerians. We know a great deal about the Sumerians and their writing since they wrote everything on these clay tablets. Some of the writing is almost impossible to decipher, but most of it is made up of bills of sale, legal documents, grain storage and other such minutiae. Over time, the Sumerians figured out some shortcuts to their writing. Skipping a few steps, we arrive at the English Language with its 26-letter alphabet. Of course, English has issues that come from being relatively old and from having a weird system of grammar and spelling.
Now, from what I understand, English is a horribly difficult language to reach proficiency in. We have so many homophones and letters that can make multiple sounds and weird words from before they invented spelling and so on. The basic idea of all languages is that the combination of letters represent sounds. At least, that is the case in English. In order to read proficiently, it is important to “hear” all of those sounds when you read. The issue here is that many people neglect to do this. Some people just can’t hear the phonemes of the written word. I have heard that slowing the word down works, but you have to really slow it down to enunciate each sound.
I could go on and on with piling praise on this book, but this review is getting a bit lengthy so I will say that the section that describes the solution is also quite informative, putting forward a curriculum that will help your child to learn to read. All in all, this book was phenomenal. It was enjoyable and fascinating, a combination that is difficult to beat.
I would really like to find information on the current state of literacy in my country or even in my local community, but a Google Search turned up nothing of note.
March 20, 2022
قرأت من الكتاب عدد صفحات قليلة جدا ( ما يقارب ال ٣٠ صفحة).
أردت وضعه في قائمة المقروء لأذكر نفسي بمحاولتي لقراءة كتاب باللغة الانجليزية ولأنه يحمل ذكرى جميلة ..
أردت وضعه في قائمة المقروء لأذكر نفسي بمحاولتي لقراءة كتاب باللغة الانجليزية ولأنه يحمل ذكرى جميلة ..
May 15, 2018
Don't miss this one if you have any children (or adults) in your life who don't read well. I'm totally serious. This lady has the answer.
Her son & DIL have started a company to use the methods that she initially "invented"/"discovered" and you can follow up with Read America as you see fit. They have also written a sort of DIY version of their program called Reading Reflex. Again, follow up as you see fit.
Skip to the middle/end, if you find that you don't want to wade through all the history of language stuff. Don't miss her conclusions and results! (I thought the front half was fascinating, but not everyone will.)
Biggest spoiler: there is no such thing as dyslexia. Seriously.
Her son & DIL have started a company to use the methods that she initially "invented"/"discovered" and you can follow up with Read America as you see fit. They have also written a sort of DIY version of their program called Reading Reflex. Again, follow up as you see fit.
Skip to the middle/end, if you find that you don't want to wade through all the history of language stuff. Don't miss her conclusions and results! (I thought the front half was fascinating, but not everyone will.)
Biggest spoiler: there is no such thing as dyslexia. Seriously.
March 1, 2009
As a student in Elementary Education, I chose to read this book to better my understanding of how children learn to read. It really angers me to think that the whole language approach is still in use today, and I hope that it won't be in effect for much longer...I believe every teacher of reading should check into this book, definately.
March 8, 2009
Fabulous! If you have a child who is struggling in school, especially with reading, this book will provide you with valuable insight.
April 12, 2021
I came to it because I heard a radio program about children with reading problems on MPR when driving back from getting my first vaccination shot a couple of weeks ago, and I got so interested in the ideas that I wanted to dive deeper even though I have no personal use for this info right now. I couldn't find anything written by the radio journalist, but this book seemed like it would cover what I found interesting. I was not disappointed.
This book covers a lot of history of the written word, at least partly to explain that decoding written language is really NOT a natural skill and it is therefore a teaching mistake to think students will pick up this skill "naturally" after haphazardly throwing out some information about the alphabet. There are also what I'd describe as "classroom transcripts" of unprepared instructors trying to teach reading to young students in that way; these scenes are generally painful to read as you imagine a child struggling to apply those disparate factoids to their reading and spelling lessons while remembering the correct situations for applying those lessons.
After describing the history and the issues of reading, the book gives a somewhat high-level view of the method it wants to prescribe with enough detail to make it helpful. I say "high-level" in the sense that there is nothing close to lesson plans here, but there are descriptions of what material should be included for different school-age groups and also how the material might be presented in remediation situations, such as for an adult non-reader. The work of figuring out lessons, making a schedule calendar, etc., I would describe, as a long-ago math grad student, are exercises left to the reader. :-)
I see a number of reviewers commenting about how "phonics" in their (children's) school is doing a better job of teaching the letter sounds, so they plan to use those materials instead of anything here. Those comments make me question whether those reviewers actually read the book, since it addresses the "phonics" method as well as the whole-language teaching ideas. The "big idea" I find in this book is that _written language is a code_; it's used to record spoken language in a written way. If or when that idea is thoroughly digested, it becomes clear that confusion may arise by trying to teach reading from the other direction, e.g. by introducing the letter 'e', explaining it can make a "long" or "short" sound (what even do those terms mean??), and adding "rules" about when one or the other pronunciation should be used that end up riddled with exceptions (example: "the letters 'ea,' being two vowels together, should sound as the 'long' sound of the first letter, 'ee'; except there are words like thread, bread, and others that are exceptions"). I suspect some of the complaints are from people (like me) who were taught to read using those systems, and now figure those rules are some "rite of passage" to learning to read. In my reading of this book, one of the author's crucial points is: they're not.
If you are looking for material to try to understand and to help a poor reader in your life, I think this book holds promise as a way to help that poor reader figure out the code of our written English language while helping you understand how difficult reading can actually be. However, don't open this book expecting a set of sequential lessons on how to read: this book provides the materials, you'll have to provide the plan and the materials yourself, based on what you find within.
This book covers a lot of history of the written word, at least partly to explain that decoding written language is really NOT a natural skill and it is therefore a teaching mistake to think students will pick up this skill "naturally" after haphazardly throwing out some information about the alphabet. There are also what I'd describe as "classroom transcripts" of unprepared instructors trying to teach reading to young students in that way; these scenes are generally painful to read as you imagine a child struggling to apply those disparate factoids to their reading and spelling lessons while remembering the correct situations for applying those lessons.
After describing the history and the issues of reading, the book gives a somewhat high-level view of the method it wants to prescribe with enough detail to make it helpful. I say "high-level" in the sense that there is nothing close to lesson plans here, but there are descriptions of what material should be included for different school-age groups and also how the material might be presented in remediation situations, such as for an adult non-reader. The work of figuring out lessons, making a schedule calendar, etc., I would describe, as a long-ago math grad student, are exercises left to the reader. :-)
I see a number of reviewers commenting about how "phonics" in their (children's) school is doing a better job of teaching the letter sounds, so they plan to use those materials instead of anything here. Those comments make me question whether those reviewers actually read the book, since it addresses the "phonics" method as well as the whole-language teaching ideas. The "big idea" I find in this book is that _written language is a code_; it's used to record spoken language in a written way. If or when that idea is thoroughly digested, it becomes clear that confusion may arise by trying to teach reading from the other direction, e.g. by introducing the letter 'e', explaining it can make a "long" or "short" sound (what even do those terms mean??), and adding "rules" about when one or the other pronunciation should be used that end up riddled with exceptions (example: "the letters 'ea,' being two vowels together, should sound as the 'long' sound of the first letter, 'ee'; except there are words like thread, bread, and others that are exceptions"). I suspect some of the complaints are from people (like me) who were taught to read using those systems, and now figure those rules are some "rite of passage" to learning to read. In my reading of this book, one of the author's crucial points is: they're not.
If you are looking for material to try to understand and to help a poor reader in your life, I think this book holds promise as a way to help that poor reader figure out the code of our written English language while helping you understand how difficult reading can actually be. However, don't open this book expecting a set of sequential lessons on how to read: this book provides the materials, you'll have to provide the plan and the materials yourself, based on what you find within.
July 12, 2018
This is a big book with plenty of information, including assessments that can be used by teachers. It is scholarly and reads like a textbook. There is a lot to reflect on here, even for experienced teachers. Parents who have children who are having trouble with reading will also find information about how reading skills are developed and ways to help their children advance.
August 4, 2022
Amazing book that I did as a professional development over the summer.. there are chapters I will be going back to reread.. especially about the scope and sequence we need to be using with our students. This book definitely had some eye opening moments and again times when it reminded me how important the kindergarten and first grade years are for our Ariadne’s learning to read..
January 14, 2018
Review to follow. Pramis! :)
September 9, 2020
Great way to teach reading.
March 29, 2010
This is a pretty intense book about how to teach reading. If you're looking for a simplistic, everyone-can-do-it teaching method, this isn't it. But, if it were easy to teach reading to all students, then there wouldn't be nearly as many cases of "dyslexia" in America today. English is hard - I think everyone knows that. We're a melting pot, our language reflects that, and thus any "rules" that the teacher tries to put into place fall apart quickly when kids try to read the irregular words that compose 20% of our vocabulary.
This book is fairly dense, but on a general level, it makes sense. I'm not ready to sit down with a group of kindergartners and teach them to read and spell after having read this book, but I at least now know what I should look for in a reading program. The Core Knowledge program is putting together a reading program (it's in the testing phase now) that uses this book and the ideas in it as the basis for the program. This is one of the very, very few programs out there which does this. Just one more reason to be a fan of the Core Knowledge program.
Anyway, I wouldn't suggest "Why Our Children Can't Read" to just anyone, because most people couldn't care less how reading is taught. However, if your child has a significant reading problem, or if you're going to school to become an elementary school teacher (or a reading specialist,) then this is the book to read, and I couldn't recommend it more highly. I just wish that an updated version would come out, since this was written in 1997, over 10 years ago, and I'm sure that new research has been done since then.
This book is fairly dense, but on a general level, it makes sense. I'm not ready to sit down with a group of kindergartners and teach them to read and spell after having read this book, but I at least now know what I should look for in a reading program. The Core Knowledge program is putting together a reading program (it's in the testing phase now) that uses this book and the ideas in it as the basis for the program. This is one of the very, very few programs out there which does this. Just one more reason to be a fan of the Core Knowledge program.
Anyway, I wouldn't suggest "Why Our Children Can't Read" to just anyone, because most people couldn't care less how reading is taught. However, if your child has a significant reading problem, or if you're going to school to become an elementary school teacher (or a reading specialist,) then this is the book to read, and I couldn't recommend it more highly. I just wish that an updated version would come out, since this was written in 1997, over 10 years ago, and I'm sure that new research has been done since then.
May 4, 2014
This book does a great job of explaining the reading strategies students often use (and that teachers often teach) that lead to reading failure for many of our children. It discusses how most teachers do not know how to teach children to read or write. Without understanding how the English written code was developed, many assume that writing is based on letters. The author argues that this is all backwards. She contends that the English writing system is based on sound, that there are 42 sounds in the English language and ONLY 26 letters in the alphabet. If one only learns the letters and not ALL of the English sounds, this creates a variety of problems when later trying to separate a word into all of its individual sounds when writing. A fascinating read and a must read for anyone who teaches literacy.
February 18, 2008
I really enjoyed the new insights this book shared on current techniques to teach reading, and why/how those ways aren't very successful. The author then shares the phonographic system, how it works and how better results are achieved with this method. Since I have used the method as a reading tutor, and have seen its successes, I am glad this book is out there.
April 17, 2023
I had been teaching reading, quite successfully, as a spec ed teacher using methods contrary to school policy. Noticed this in Chapters when it was first released. Saw it- read it - vindicated!
[Many school boards have since changed their policies.]
[Many school boards have since changed their policies.]
October 30, 2011
We have a long way to go!
Want to read
December 31, 2011About the history of the alphabet. Rec. by Steven Pinker
372.4 MCG
372.4 MCG
February 11, 2015
An excellent resource on the reading task, builds phoneme awareness as basic block of how to teach.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews