Beyond the alphabet: From competent reader to avid reader

Abstract

This paper is addressed to those who know, as I do, how vitally important it is for people to become competent readers. We are the con vinced. We need not reiterate that it may even be literally a matter of life and death, of school and economic survival, of any sort of employment or vocational success, of staying out of jail or hospital, of driving a car, of protecting oneself against exploitation, of reading a menu or a mail order catalog, or of just having something to do while awaiting one's turn at the dentist's.