I did it for a textbook house and they sent me a word list. That was due to the Dewey revolt in the twenties, in which they threw out phonics reading and went to a word recognition as if you’re reading a Chinese pictograph instead of blending sounds or different letters. I think killing phonics was one of the greatest causes of illiteracy in the country. Anyway they had it all worked out that a healthy child at the age of four can only learn so many words in a week. So there were two hundred and twenty-three words to use in this book. I read the list three times and I almost went out of my head. I said, "I’ll read it once more and if I can find two words that rhyme, that’ll be the title of my book." I found "cat" and "hat" and said, the title of my book will be The Cat in the Hat.Dr. Seuss, 1981 Interview
Great quote -- got the source? I'd love to share it.
ReplyDeleteI learned to read from Dr. Seuss books and have fond memories of the fun of decoding new words.
P.S. Thanks for your posts on Reading First. What a shame if politics overshadows progress.
The quote comes from Gatto's Underground History of American Education, pp. 72-73. Here's a direct link.
ReplyDeleteAccording to numerous web pages, the source is an interview in "Arizona magazine", June 1981.
ReplyDeleteWhich doesn't mean that these numerous web pages are correct.
-Mark Roulo