UPPER SCHOOL READING PROGRAM

Functional literacy in the United States is in serious decline, as of this writing. This means that the ability to read a written work and pull from it information is in decline. That is probably a very bad thing!

Newspapers are closing for lack of support, and they have been in decline for decades. So are bookstore chains...big ones! The employability of young people is in serious question when they cannot or do not read.

With that in mind, Connect The Thoughts provides an extensive series of courses dealing with reading and literature.

Why do we read? We read for pleasure, if we find it pleasurable. We read out of necessity if the reading is work or study-related. We read for information, when reading a newspaper (assuming that is what the newspaper is actually providing), a text book, or other informative materials. We read to expand upon our own understanding of things. We read to become more involved, or to escape. Each of us who do read do it for our own reasons. Reading is perhaps the most critically important facility a person can have. An inability to read is a disaster. An unwillingness to read, or a lack of interest in reading, is a personal crisis that can only result in personal loss, whether the person is aware or not of this fact.

Helping a student become interested in reading at a relatively early age can help establish it as habit and as joy. It pulls the student away from less constructive pursuits such as video games. It provides the student a private and personal outlet where they can generally go where they want and at their own pace, something the world does not often do. It develops the single skill the student will most need to succeed in his goals in life.

The habit of reading is a must.

You will find courses here that help a student learn to read, in our Starter and Elementary curriculum. But here, you will find literature guides that help develop the joy of reading. Some revolve around a specific literary genre, such as science fiction. Others revolve around a specific writer, or a specific famed work of literature. Each of these courses is intended to help the student experience literature and reading in a manner that will; encourage him to want more. And that is a result we should dearly want to achieve.