Kayma wrote:At the very least, it seems that they plan to provide the services of this app to educators for free
Only at low-income schools. At least, that's how it's been framed so far; we're still waiting on stretch goals. Given that the Kickstarter is already on the verge of going twice as high, I'm hoping that's going to mean more subsidies for free educational use.
Kayma wrote:I think the best argument against their thesis is that RR kind of assumes basic reading ability; it's not going to teach a kid to read necessarily, but could certainly foster and improve ability.
That was always the point, though. Indeed, in an
NPR interview LeVar chafed a bit on the pressure to shift the show's emphasis toward the mechanics of reading in its later years.
I absolutely agree that there needs to be more emphasis on teaching kids to read. But that was never what Reading Rainbow was about; it was always about how cool books are.