Sensitive to Learning

In response to Adults Left Behind (10/11), in which William J. Byron, S.J., observed that society owes our illiterate adults something in compensation for failing them when they were children, a reader, Rudy Cypser, wrote (11/1) that this is another case of finding the root cause of symptoms and trying to do something about it.

But if the root cause of illiteracy is something that happenedor did not happento these unfortunate citizens in their early years when they were receptive to learning, can they really go back? The evidence would indicate otherwise; for hundreds of adults, it is too late now to make a substantial difference through adult remedial instruction. It is also prohibitively expensive.

This is why programs like the Harlem-based Casa de los Nios for 3- to 5-year-olds, under the direction of the Montessori Development and Training Corporation, are sorely needed if we want to interrupt the cycle of illiteracy.

The alternative to remedial programs is to catch children when they are sensitive to language development and learning in general. If you have a small child in your life, you know his constant Why?; and if you care about that child, you will not become impatient and turn off his natural curiosity by sitting him in front of the television set to be quiet; instead you will, as psychologist J. McVicker Hunt has said, match his level of readiness to know with appropriate learning activities or find an affordable institution that provides them. All the research points to this wisdom, but all too few academic programs for young children apply it effectively. Why do we wait until failure sets in and then wring our hands? Why do we waste time and throw away so many lives?

Marion Ragsdale