Friday, August 28, 2009

A rainbow gone---

Always, always a pot of gold with each episode of Reading Rainbow

LeVar Burton’s engaging stories, activities and laughter—

Smiling, joyous youngsters regaling young readers and old with wonderful reasons to make their book a favorite---

26 years of encouraging a love of and passion for reading—

Gone because—“the decision to end Reading Rainbow can also be traced to a shift in the philosophy of educational television programming. The change started with the Department of Education under the Bush administration … which wanted to see a much heavier focus on the basic tools of reading — like phonics and spelling.”

But you don’t have to take my word for it-- Reading Rainbow Reaches Its Final Chapter

“Butterfly in the sky, I can go twice as high,
Take a look, it's in a book — Reading Rainbow ...”


Photo Credit

4 comments:

Darren Kuropatwa said...

That's so sad. I loved watching that show ... no, I loved watching my kids watching that show.

Mike Bogle said...

Thanks very much for posting this - I had no idea. This is such a terrible outcome for television and particularly for children.

What get's me more though is how incredibly flawed the logic is behind the decision to cancel it. The "why" of learning is one of the most critical questions people need to be exposed to - or more importantly to explore themselves.

I'm pondering all this over at the moment, but regardless it's a horrible outcome :(

It's not surprising to see the comments on that post too - a vast majority of people are voicing a willingness to contribute to keep the program on the air via user contributions. Surely there's something that can be done about that...

Anonymous said...

Hi Darren,

I loved watching Reading Rainbow too!!

Hi Mike,

I totally agree-- Your post is so much more articulate.

I was so frustrated and depressed upon hearing the news; the powers that be fail to understand the power of passion and joy for reading--

It truly is a horrible outcome!
Lani

Alison said...

This is so tremendously sad! I grew up with Reading Rainbow- many of the books that my sister and I read as we were learning to read were featured on Reading Rainbow. I'm sad for the children who won't have the opportunity to share in books with LeVar or the other children who shared on the program. So sad.