Knowledge Deficit : Getting a Reading Revolution for a New Generation of American Achievers

by Hirsch, E. D., Jr.

• ISBN13: 9780618657315
• ISBN10: 0618657312
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-04-24
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Summary

E. D. Hirsch, Jr., author of the best-selling Cultural Literacy and our most insightful thinker on what schools teach, offers an urgent solution to the shocking national decline in children's reading ability. How can it be, Hirsch asks, that American students score so low among developed nations in international comparisons -- and that they perform worse the longer they stay in school? Drawing on arresting classroom scenes, the history of ideas, and current understanding of the patterns of intellectual growth, Hirsch builds the powerful case that, while our schools excel at teaching the mechanics of reading, they fail virtually all American children -- poor and middle class, in public and private schools -- because of their inability to convey the more complex and essential skills of reading comprehension. Hirsch brilliantly reasons that literacy depends less on the formalistic reading "skills" taught in virtually every school across America and more on exposure to content-rich, appealing books. His argument is compelling, for it - gives parents specific tools for enhancing their child's ability to read with comprehension; - shows how No Child Left Behind and SATs measure reading comprehension -- a knowledge-based skill not successfully taught in our schools; - tackles the weaknesses of specific state-by-state curricula - explains in detail how American schools can serve as the strongest possible antidote to poverty and to our frustrating race-based achievement gap A road map for all thinking parents, teachers, and citizens, The Knowledge Deficit shows exactly how we can convert all American schools into places where the skill of reading comprehension is effectively imparted -- and why this goal is ever more essential to the democratic ideal.

Author Biography

E.D. Hirsch, Jr. is the Linden Kent Memorial Professor of English at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, and the author of Cultural Literacy, The First Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, and The Core Knowledge Series. Dr. Hirsch is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has been a senior fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities. He is president of the Core Knowledge Foundation, a nonprofit organization devoted to educational reform.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
Why Do We Have A Knowledge Deficit?	1	(22)
The Achievement Crisis	1	(2)
The Curse of Romantic Ideas	3	(4)
Should Schooling Be Natural?	7	(1)
What About ``Mere Facts''?	8	(3)
Is Knowing How Better than Knowing What?	11	(3)
Is Society to Blame?	14	(2)
Making Better Ideas Prevail	16	(7)
Sounding Out: Just The Becinning Of Reading	23	(28)
What We've Recently Achieved	23	(3)
Is Reading Like Listening?	26	(9)
Filling in the Blanks	35	(4)
Are Some Kinds of Knowledge Better than Others?	39	(6)
Reading Strategies: A Path to Boredom	45	(6)
Knowledge Of Language	51	(17)
Learning the Standard Language	51	(3)
Learning Grammar	54	(2)
Learning the Elaborated Code	56	(2)
Building Vocabulary	58	(8)
Can Disadvantaged Children Catch Up?	66	(2)
Knowledge Of Things	68	(12)
What the Text Doesn't Say	68	(2)
Who Is the General Reader?	70	(3)
How Much Knowledge Do We Need?	73	(1)
Which Knowledge Do We Need?	74	(3)
Why Not in the Reading Program?	77	(3)
Using School Time Productively	80	(11)
Wasting Students' Time	80	(3)
Blaming Teachers	83	(2)
Better Use of Time Leads to Greater Fairness	85	(3)
Using Time Effectively	88	(3)
Using Tests Productively	91	(16)
Are Tests Driving Our Schools?	91	(2)
The Flaws of State Tests	93	(3)
The Nature of Reading Tests	96	(6)
What Kinds of Tests Will Enhance Education?	102	(5)
Achieving Commonality And Fairness	107	(20)
Reading and a Wider Crisis	107	(1)
Fulfilling Our Nation's Highest Ideals	108	(1)
Constantly Changing Schools --- A Critical Issue	109	(3)
Localism and a Perfect Storm of Bad Educational Ideas	112	(3)
Are There Decisive Advantages in Specifying Definite Content?	115	(4)
Thinking the Unthinkable: A Core of Common Content in Early Grades	119	(8)
Appendix: The Critical Importance Of An Adequate Theory Of Reading	127	(12)
Notes	139	(20)
Acknowledgments	159	(2)
Index	161