“Americans aren’t good readers”-Daniel Willingham. But are they? Daniel Willingham wrote the article “How to Get Your Mind to Read” to inform people about a problem in American schools: reading comprehension. He uses reasoning to explain that people don’t comprehend what they are reading because they don’t know anything about what they are reading. A third grader and a senior aren’t the same age, don’t have the maturity level, nor are do they have the same reading skills. Daniel T. Willingham says people are spending all of their time reading about what they should be learning about. Daniel uses a group of third graders as an example. He says that third graders spend more time reading than learning which “backfires in later grades.” Daniel’s reasoning is flawed because a third grader doesn’t have the same mental maturity as a senior; therefore, students reading when they are younger is not going to impact or “backfire” on them in later grades. This contradicts with his claim that people will comprehend more of what they are reading if they know what they are reading about. …show more content…
This doesn’t test the students’ ability to comprehend the passage, but instead it tests the knowledge a student has gained outside the classroom. Daniel talks about the fake news headline, “Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Donald Trump for President” and says if people knew about the pope they would immediately know that this is fake. If this were on an SAT there is only a slight chance that someone would be able to analyze this passage correctly, but that is what the SAT is about. The SAT is supposed to test your knowledge on different types of subject matter by challenging you to take these difficult tests. Thus, straying away from his