Sandi Greene » Television http://www.sandigreene.net Teacher and Author Tue, 13 Jul 2010 19:32:05 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Goodbye to “Reading Rainbow” http://www.sandigreene.net/2009/08/31/goodbye-to-%e2%80%9creading-rainbow%e2%80%9d/ http://www.sandigreene.net/2009/08/31/goodbye-to-%e2%80%9creading-rainbow%e2%80%9d/#comments Mon, 31 Aug 2009 08:00:30 +0000 Sandi Greene http://allaboutya.wordpress.com/?p=196 Yes, I cried about it on my Facebook page, and now I’m going to cry about it here.

If you grew up in the 80s (or even 90s) you’ll fondly remember the PBS Show “Reading Rainbow.” I loved this show. I could sing the theme song by heart and knew LeVar Burton’s face better than any other television personality. Maybe that’s where I learned to love books and that in turn fed into my subconscious to become a writer.

So I was bummed the other night when I heard the show ended as of last Friday. It ran for 26 years, the third longest running children’s show, beaten by only “Sesame Street” and “Mr. Rogers.”

Part of the reason for the closure was funding for the show. However, there has also been a shift in philosophy from teaching kids that they need to read, to actually showing them how to read through phonics and other techniques.

I hope that more of the children’s cable television shows will focus on reading as PBS has done in the past. The end of an awesome era has come, and it makes me sad. So long Reading Rainbow. I’ll miss you.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6j8EiWIVZs]

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