Daniel Buck is an associate at the Fordham Institute in Washington, D.C., an important think tank,

probably maybe one of the most important think tanks in the education world.

He's a former English teacher, and he is the author of a book, What is Wrong with Our Schools?

He wrote a nice article in First Things last year entitled, Don't Spare the Rod.

He has authored a report recently for the Fordham Institute entitled, Should Elementary

Schools Teach Reading Comprehension, a study whose title may suggest to our listeners, perhaps

a rather narrow or recondite topic, but which has been one of the key factors in trends

in educational achievement in recent times, or at least that is what we may

hear from our guest. Welcome, Mr. Buck. Thank you for having me on. I'm an ardent reader of

first things, and I'm humbled and honored to be here. Good thing. Good, good, good, deal. Well, first of all,

a question that may sound rather ignorant. But what does reading

comprehension mean specifically? When people say that, what are they really talking about?

There's a simple view of reading that gets tossed around and thrown around and discussed

with frequency, and that reading has two, you know, main components to it.

The first half is decoding. Can kids sound out their letters? Can they see BED and sound out bed?

That's the first half. And then the second half is can they make sense of what that actually says?

And any teacher, not just English teacher, but history, science, music teachers even, have encountered the student who can sound out all of their words.

But then if you ask them basic questions, well, what did that say? What did that

character do? Where are they? Even the most basic of questions, a student will look at you,

blankface, and say, I have not a clue. Well, they'll say, I don't know. And that's what the

reading comprehension is, is can they actually make sense of and understand and repeat to you what a passage or book or article said?

So they're reading comprehension.

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