The Future of Reading.

Solutions or
Resignation

“Ahead of us lie technical, psychic and social trasformations

probably much more dramatic than those brought about by Gutenberg.”

Such a prediction can cause a lot of distress to a very conventional

and traditional person as I am. And indeed George Steiner was right to
make such a prediction, but the first question that comes to my mind is :
Should we worry? Do we have a reason ? Or is this just part of the ever
deeper pessimistic congenial characteristic that some of us have? I could
not say, but for myself, I am open to new inventions just as long as I don’t
lose the sense of intellectual comfort that the traditional study gives me.
And study, of course envolves reading.
And now comes my dilemma: Is reading and reading on-line the
same thing? I don’t think so. Without omitting the informational
dimension ( not to mention speed and availability ) reading on-line cannot
offer the cosy, almost intimate relation that is established between a
reader and his book.The most fascinating side of traditional reading, is ,
for me, the fact that from the very abstract real dimension of a book that
we hold in our hand, our mind can build up constructs that take us on the
imaginative level.Of course that one of the most important reasons why
people prefer reading on-line is the nature of our speeding society.And the
internet was conceived as a tool for the speeding man ; everything is made
to be available at a click’s distance, and in most cases that is very
important.
Another issue on reading is whether reading an add or a TV
programme can qualify as reading. The truth is that to read an add you
have to make use of the same knowledge as when reading literature, but I
think real reading envolves a far deeper intellectual effort, not to mention
the cultural aspect of this issue.
One sure fact is that newspapers are considered a very strong
teaching resource. There has been a widely spread observation that adults
might be more comfortable learning with a newspaper than with
instructional materials aimed at children. This observation was born in the
case studies of “Newspapers in Adult Education : A Sourcebook “
(1998). According to the sourcebook, many countries ( including
Argentina, Cameroon, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and
South Africa) promote newspaper- education partnerships to improve the
education of their adult citizens. The 10 cases presented in the sourcebook
offer examples of how partnerships between educators and newspapers
can play an active role in making adult education more attractive and
effective and in preparing informed citizens.
But honestly I don’t think that the real problem is the lack of reading
material.On the contrary, I believe that even in Romania we can manage
to read almost anything that is woth taking into consideration. And even
those documents that we cannot find in libraries, bookshops or personal
collections, we can take from the internet ( and here I have to aknowledge
sove merits of the on-line libraries) , but the difference between a
traditional reader and an “on-line” reader is that the traditional one will
print his material and then devour it from a piece of paper . And all that
because I noticed that all traditional readers when reading something
always have something to note beside the text : a comment, an issue worth
discussing, a symbol to be looked up in the dictionary or maybe a
question to self, food for thought.
Therefore, a major problem would be that of motivating people to
read. Because closely connected to reading is writing.Writing is to
reading what waking is to sleeping, as giving is to receiving. And this
should be an important issue worthy to keep in mind when implementing
the importance of reading. The issue of motivation is very controversial:
some argue that to make them read you have to give them material that
appeals to their interest, others that education should be done properly
and that they should be given to read all the classical works in order to
form their taste and knowledge. The truth is somewhere in between. In
“Adolescent Literacy: A Position Statement”(1999) the International
Reading Association asserts that adolescent learners deserve the kind of
support and learning opportunities that will enable them to grow into
confident, independent readers and writers.The Association believes that
adolescent readers have a right to support in seven specific areas:

1. Access to a wide variety of reading material that appeals to their

interests
2.Instruction that builds the skill and desire to read increasingly
complex materials
3.Assessment that shows their strengths as well as their needs
 4.Expert teachers who model and provide explicit instruction across
the curriculum
5.Reading specialists who assist students having difficulty learning
how to read
6.Teachers who understand the complexities of individual
adolescent readers
7.Homes and communities that support the needs of adolescent
learners.

Still I cannot help wondering why is there so much fuss over how
and when and what do people read , since they do read , don’t they?
Actually the situation is not so pink.The National Assesment of Education
Progress Report in 1981 revealed that 85% of 13 year-olds could complete
correctly a multiple choice check on comprehention. Unfortunately, the
figures have dropped since then, because only 46% of the children of the
same age were able to correctly complete the tests in 1999.
In order to deal with this menacing issue there are lots of associations
that were formed , not to mention lots of websites that provide the
necessary material. All we have to do is READ, and everything will be
fine!