Lucid, erudite, interesting; those are the words that I would use to describe “Why Our Children Can’t Read” by Diane McGuinness, Ph.D. Literacy is one of the most important things to me since I feel that the free distribution of information is essential to a well-functioning democratic government. Of course, there are situations and events that occur to put that position in doubt but as many people say, knowledge is power. Now, before I dive any further, I will say that this book is older than I thought. I don’t know how accurate a lot of the statistics still are, but I don’t think we have improved all that much. Just for reference, this book is copyright 1997, so as of this review it is 21 years old. Please bear that in mind.

The book is lucid in that Dr. McGuinness explains everything with aplomb. While first introducing the idea of literacy and her disdain for whole-word methodology in teaching reading, she also puts down phonics in some cases, seeing as how many don’t really know how to teach it as of the printing of this book. Starting out with an explanation of how writing developed in the first place was really interesting. Now, my methods of reading are shrouded in mystery since I learned to read when I was quite young. I know that in school I had Phonics since I remember doing the rhyme exercises and breaking down syllables of words. However, it seems that many people are not so lucky. The whole-word methodology of reading forces you to remember every single word possible. No child has the capacity to remember all possible words. It would be like handing a child a dictionary at the beginning of the year and expecting that child to be able to understand English completely by the end of it.

Dr. McGuinness goes over the development and processes that made up the present state of printed English. This part was really fascinating and quite scholarly. Writing is an invention made by the hands of man. Now it is not divinely inspired, or else everyone could read easily. That is my take on it. So we go over the history of writing itself starting with the Sumerians. We know a great deal about the Sumerians and their writing since they wrote everything on these clay tablets. Some of the writing is almost impossible to decipher, but most of it is made up of bills of sale, legal documents, grain storage and other such minutiae. Over time, the Sumerians figured out some shortcuts to their writing. Skipping a few steps, we arrive at the English Language with its 26-letter alphabet. Of course, English has issues that come from being relatively old and from having a weird system of grammar and spelling.

Now, from what I understand, English is a horribly difficult language to reach proficiency in. We have so many homophones and letters that can make multiple sounds and weird words from before they invented spelling and so on. The basic idea of all languages is that the combination of letters represent sounds. At least, that is the case in English. In order to read proficiently, it is important to “hear” all of those sounds when you read. The issue here is that many people neglect to do this. Some people just can’t hear the phonemes of the written word. I have heard that slowing the word down works, but you have to really slow it down to enunciate each sound.

I could go on and on with piling praise on this book, but this review is getting a bit lengthy so I will say that the section that describes the solution is also quite informative, putting forward a curriculum that will help your child to learn to read. All in all, this book was phenomenal. It was enjoyable and fascinating, a combination that is difficult to beat.

I would really like to find information on the current state of literacy in my country or even in my local community, but a Google Search turned up nothing of note. ( )

This is by far the best book I've read about teaching kids to read. Until I read this book, I found the entire subject confusing -- now I feel like someone suddenly turned on the lights.

Ms. McGuinness provides a clear review of the history of writing systems, and then uses this information together with extensive scientific research to explain what children need, and what they don't need, to help them learn how to read English.

One of the most valuable insights I gained from this book is that most phonics programs have it backwards. The letter "b" does not make the /b/ sound, the letter "b" is a way to write down the /b/ sound. This is a seemingly subtle distinction, and not all that important for the letter "b". However, it makes a big difference when talking about letter combinations that sometimes have one pronunciation, and sometimes another, such as the "ea" in "break" vs. "bleak".

She does make some assertions about dyslexia that I'm suspicious of, and which I do not feel qualified to comment on further. ( )

McGuinness is overly ambitious with this book by trying to propose a magic solution to the reading problem. I like Ch 3-5, the linguistic and historical analysis of the problem. Her solution -- which is phonics in a different name -- simply won't fair any better than existing pedagogies. ( )