Hooked on books

Forget the reading technique and focus on the stories | Joel Belz

It isn't every day—and it's probably good that it isn't—that a WORLD subscriber e-mails me to say, "I just read your column and want to come and talk with you about it." But a fellow from Lockhart, Texas, wrote me just such a note after reading my Feb. 4 piece about eighth-grade tests in Iowa's public schools in 1924. He was so passionate in his response that we ended up having dinner together this past weekend here in Asheville. Now I want to spread a bit of his passion.

My new friend, whom I will call Henry because that's his real name, wants children to read more. And he wants them to love to read. He thinks bad reading habits today, and bad methods of teaching reading, are the main reasons that today's high-school graduates and even many college students would struggle with a test that was typical for rural eighth-graders some 80 years ago.