Even if you can't remember a specific Reading Rainbow episode, chances are, the theme song is still lodged somewhere in your head:
Butterfly in the sky, I can go twice as high,
Take a look, it's in a book — Reading Rainbow ...
Remember now?
Reading Rainbow comes to the end of its 26-year run on Friday; it has won more than two-dozen Emmys, and is the third longest-running children's show in PBS history — outlasted only by Sesame Street and Mister Rogers.
The show, hosted by LeVar Burton has become a victim not only to the recession--several hundreds of thousands of dollars were needed to renew its broadcast rights, and no one ponied up the money--but also a change of philosophy that started under the Bush administration for focusing on the nuts-and-bolts of reading, how to read, rather than developing a love of reading, which is what 'Reading Rainbow' was all about. As the content director for the series' home station put it '"Reading Rainbow" taught kids why to read.'
LeVar Burton once said, 'I think reading is part of the birthright of the human being. It's just such an integral part of the human experience — that connection with the written word.' I agree. And I'm saddened that teaching children to love reading is no longer part of the focus for public television, because even though you can give a child phonics and spelling and all the rest, it's what they do with it that matters, and some will never care, but for others, reading will be a lifelong joy.
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