Reading, History of

The history of reading curriculum encompasses political and ideological forces as well as research and theory on fundamentals of the reading process. Although adults have used varied techniques to help children interpret symbols and language for thousands of years, U.S. educators did not develop formal, systematic reading curricula until the common schools emerged in the 1820s. The expansion of public education, technological advancements in printing, and the growing importance of print culture in the 19th century increased opportunities to read and advanced reading as a field of study. Despite these advancements, sharp inequities in reading opportunities and access to materials endure today; social prescriptions of who can and should read have been linked to race, socioeconomic class, gender, citizenship, and nationality. Historically, reading curricula have shifted from an eclectic mix of rote memorization, Biblical reading, and “whole word” instruction to systematic, research-based and assessment-driven reading practices. Throughout these changes, the goal of reading curricula has remained the same: to create a literate U.S. citizenry.

Most U.S. citizens had limited access to printed materials or reading tools before the 19th century. In the 1700s, while social elites had financial resources and leisure to access texts, most farming families of rural United States perceived reading, beyond basic facility with contracts and knowledge of religious texts, as utterly wasteful. As a budding “U.S.” identity emerged in the wake of the American Revolution, citizens began to idealize the potential of public education to forge a “civilized” nation and assimilate diverse immigrants into a shared culture. Changing beliefs about the purpose and value of reading, and the emergence of literature written specifically for children, spurred the development of systematic reading curricula. Literacy rates increased steadily throughout the 19th century, albeit with significant differences across race, gender, and class, and [Page 733]by the 1860s, more than 90% of Northern European Americans were literate.

Technological developments and economic forces were integral in the shift from localized reading curriculum to more systematic and widespread practices. The cost of paper and printing decreased, the efficiency of producing texts increased, newspaper circulation blossomed, and the advertising industry began to promote texts as consumable products. Publishers seized opportunities to market their wares for profit, producing varied texts that facilitated literacy, including textbooks, youth magazines, hymnals, and popular fiction. Whether an advertisement or a Bible, any printed text available became important literacy tools for people of color, immigrants, and women with limited access to schooling.

Approaches to school-based reading instruction varied from holistic teaching of classical literature to segmented skills and grammar exercises. Young children's reading instruction focused on articulation, pronunciation, and elocution, and later instruction included handwriting, oral recitation, reading primers, and reading aloud as a primary way to demonstrate knowledge. During the 1800s, basal readers, such as the popular McGuffey series with its subtle moral dictums, became the norm for reading instruction. The 1840s and 1850s witnessed a major shift in reading pedagogy with Francis Parker's advocacy of the whole-word instructional method in which students memorized sight words before learning letter-sound correspondences. These instructional advances were not available equally; through much of the century, teaching Southern slaves to read remained illegal.

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