Another Look at Reading and the Teaching of Reading

In recent years a continuous process of searching, experimenting, exploring, evaluating and revising has been pursued in an effort to achieve a better understanding of and performance in respect to reading instruction. This state of dissatisfaction with the teaching of reading and its achievements is appropriate. This is not because present day methods are inadequate and that present day achievements in reading are insufficient. Possible future developments suggest that our efforts should be even more adequate and the returns even greater; that is, a state of higher expectations in reading instruction should be maintained at all times. Perhaps these expectations should not be unlike those that Somerset Maugham says that American women have for their husbands. In his book, The Razor\u27s Edge, Maugham observes that American women look for the perfection in their husbands that English women only expect to find in their butlers. Such a search for perfection in respect to reading instruction should be interpreted as a recognition of the importance of reading to the further education of and in the life of the child