Publication Date
7-1-1965
Abstract
In considering the process of developing anything, we must have in mind a clear concept of the end product we are hoping to attain. In considering the developing in children of an appreciation of literature, we are aiming at producing life-time readers, children and ultimately adults who will turn with confidence to books (using a general term) for information and pleasure. Now in the day of relatively cheap printing, and hence, an overwhelming amount of inferior material, we must qualify the word "books" with the word "good." And though such a description is woefully open to a carping kind of "What do you mean?" criticism, I am fairly sure that most readers know what we mean. To add the term "of literary value," only weakens the position to me. I can but repeat that what we are trying to do in presenting good books to our young is make readers of as many of them as possible—readers in the same general sense as a ballet mistress aims to make dancers of her pupils, or a track man to make runners of his. The end in all three cases involves a high standard and a discipline that scarcely has to be defined. There may well be several steps to note in the making of readers.
Recommended Citation
Master, H. E. (1965). The Making of Readers. Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts, 5 (4). Retrieved from https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/reading_horizons/vol5/iss4/3
