"Why Johnny Can't Read" was published 55 years ago. It remains a vital, relevant document and will, i believe, be ranked as one of the most important non-fiction books of the 20th century.
Here's the main reason. The Education Establishment CONTINUES to promote all the counter-productive ideas that Flesch condemned. Sight-words, in short, are why Johnny can't read.
I've been conducting my own 55th anniversary celebration of Flesch's great achievement. (Remember, he went up against the entire Education Establishment, which was solidly entrenched in 1955 and uniformly hostile to even a whisper about phonics.)
I published several articles that might be of interest to anyone who wants to know what exactly Flesch is all about.
"Rudolph Flesch Rules the World of Reading" is somewhat longer, about 900 words. But it has a great quote from a sight-word teacher who doesn't even realize that her students can't read BECAUSE of sight-words (on CanadaFreePress). (There's a video on YouTube with same title.)
"Rudolph Flesch: Facts, Fluency & Felicity vs. Fossils, Felony & Failure" is somewhat snappier, at 600 words (on AmericanChronicles).
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Both articles try to explain our continuing debt to the great Rudolph Flesch. If our schools had been allowed to do what Flesh suggested, I suspect we'd have almost 50,000,000 fewer functional illiterates.
Saving reading is, I think, the main job of anyone trying to help American education.
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