| From
the September/October 2008 issue of The Horn Book Magazine
Editorial
Real Reading
 here
used to be a fairly neat division between reading-for-school and
reading-for-fun. Of course, there was some blurring of the lines
— book reports, for example, could stem from pleasure reading,
and there was a certain competitive thrill to racing up through
the colors of the SRA Reading Laboratory Kit. But with no small
thanks to leaders like Pat Scales (interviewed on page 489) and
working-in-concert teachers and school librarians like Monica Edinger
and Roxanne Hsu Feldman (who invite you to test your own book-and-reader
skills on page 502), reading — real reading —
can be everywhere.
Let’s hope it stays there. Unbidden by us,
the theme of standardized testing moves in dark counterpoint throughout
this special issue on school. Will standardized testing push books
out of the classroom completely? Is reading proficiency now supposed
to be its own reward? Reading always seems to have been better Back
Then; the generation complaining today that Johnny can’t read
was itself the object of that very same complaint fifty years ago,
and education has been reforming itself since Plato. But having
witnessed the decades that brought real children’s books pervasively
into classrooms, I would hate to see those books expelled, or employed
solely as fodder for multiple-choice worksheets. Tests have nothing
on books for bringing school and home, children and adults, and
teachers and librarians into common cause. Several writers in this
issue will tell you why children’s books are good for the
curriculum; I’d like you to remember that the curriculum has
been good for children’s books, too, widening their audience
and horizons.
From the September/October 2008 issue of
The Horn Book Magazine
Resources for teachers
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