Education: How Johnny Reads

Of all the statements recently made in criticism of the public schools,' none has stirred up quite such an argument as the sentence in Rudolf Flesch's bestselling Why Johnny Can't Read: "The teaching of reading—all over the United States, in all the schools, and in all the textbooks—is totally wrong and flies in the face of all logic and common sense." How accurate is Flesch's gloomy picture? Last week, in the Chicago Sun-Times, a onetime assistant professor at Western Reserve who is now a reporter spoke up for the educators. Flesch's book, says Ruth Dunbar, "is a caricature, not a...

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