The Slow Reading Movement

The Slow Reading Movement


I was reading a book the other night in which two characters were quoting lines back and forth from The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. I wondered if the ability to recall a poem or quote literature is becoming a lost art, disappearing with payphones and pellet ice. So last week when I saw a headline about the “slow reading” movement, I was sad and grateful at the same time. It seems that students are being taught to read more for speed opposed to content and retention and there is a movement afoot to try to change the tide to teach students “the experience of words”. The executive humanities editor at Harvard University Press describes it as a worldwide reading crisis. I tend to agree when you consider full length books are competing with instant message, text, and e-mails for the attention of tomorrow’s leaders.