Reading Rainbow is being canceled!

You read that right. I am so bummed! I loved Reading Rainbow as a small child. It was one of my first tv shows and I watched it practically every day. I hoped to one day have my children watch the show too.

Details here.

Personally, I think it's the job of schools, not television to teach the mechanics of how to read. Reading Rainbow makes reading cool and fun for young kids. And it's not just a matter of encouraging the literate to read, but also motivating the illiterate to want to learn to read and also, you know, a lot of kids who watch the show are still in the stage where their parents read to them. This idea of canceling it because research shows they should have programs that focus on phonics is stupid.

Who's up for a fund-raiser just for Reading Rainbow? I bet it would be really easy to raise enough money to keep it on the air if someone would just organize it. It's a shame that such a wonderful and beloved program is being canceled over the matter of just a few hundred thousand dollars.