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Culture Shock

Saying Goodbye to "Reading Rainbow"

When I heard that the kids reading show Reading Rainbow is ending its 26-year run on public television today, I had the same reaction a lot of you are probably having right now.

"Reading Rainbow is still on?" I said to my wife.

Damn right.

After a run of nearly as many years as I've been alive, a Peabody Award and 26 Emmy Awards, LeVar Burton's show is the third longest running children's series behind only Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers.

As an already bookish kid I was a big fan of Reading Rainbow, and I know I'm not alone. People with whom I've talked about it today have all been able (and suprisingly willing) to burst into the show's theme song.

Reportedly, no one will pony up for the show's broadcast rights as the educational TV climate has changed from one of teaching kids to love reading to teaching kids HOW to read in the first place.

Which I think is a shame.

But you don't have to take my word for it...

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Posted by Joe Killian on Friday, August 28, 2009 at 10:04 am

What do you think?

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rmc913

August 29, 2009 - 6:41 pm EDT

Reading Rainbow has been on the air almost as long as I've been alive, and I don't think I really realized how much it meant to me until yesterday. I had to fight back tears when I read the NPR article.

This comment from one of the show's producers really resonated with me: "Reading Rainbow taught kids WHY to read," Grant says. "You know, the love of reading — [the show] encouraged kids to pick up a book and to read."

Why to read. That's such an excellent way of putting it. Who cares if a kid can read if they see it as a chore, something to be avoided, as work? Reading Rainbow made reading seem like fun, like an adventure, because that's what it is, what it can be. A good book can be better than any videogame.

In the grand scheme of things, this is not a tragedy. But it feels like a giant leap backwards, and it makes me sad that kids won't get to experience what I did, that they won't have the opportunity to see books and reading the way I and millions of others got to. How lucky we all were.