Many educators believe it doesn't matter what kids read, so long as they are reading something. We beg to differ. Despite the good intentions of policymakers and teachers who want to improve students' reading skills, especially low-income and minority children, merely spending more time on "reading skills," does not a better reader make. Thus arises the paradoxical situation in which, as a result of NCLB, "localities have mandated that schools devote large chunks of time to reading in early grades" yet "test scores have risen only modestly or not at all, and the reading gap remains large." That's the observation of famed education thinker E.D. Hirsch (a winner of the 2003 Fordham Prize), who explains that the reason is "we expand time spent on reading but don't examine what is being read. Most of the precious hours spent on reading should be devoted to history, science, literature and art, not bland stories about 'Jose at the supermarket,' or 'Janice and her new friend'." In other words, merely practicing reading skills or spending more time on reading passages is not enough. Students must be reading things that help supply them with the background knowledge they will need to make sense of a wide variety of advanced texts.
"Many Americans can read but can't comprehend," by E.D. Hirsch, USA Today, February 24, 2004