Mrs. F. J, Pensacola, "We love your reading curriculum." Reading is not just your child's problem. It's your problem too! That declaration will come as no surprise to any caring parent who has a child caught in the trap of  aliteracy. The aliterate child knows how to read but isn't interested in reading voluntarily. The problem in many respects should not be placed on the child, the parent, or the teacher. The problem can often be placed on the curriculum! What happened to that child who at the age of three or four carried around a book until it was falling apart? What happened to the child who was eager to learn to read? Unfortunately somewhere along the way, interest waned and the desire to know was strangled by the process he didn't understand and he couldn't keep pace. Every aliterate must have another chance. The kids and pigs analogy may help us understand the problem. It is a pig's nature to eat. When a pig won't eat, the farmer knows something must be done -- soon! His profit will change to a loss if that pig doesn't begin eating. No one spoon feeds pigs! The veteranarian's visit determines there is no physical reason why that pig shouldn't want to eat. Does the farmer worry about the number of pigs in the pen? NO. Does he check out the mud or the pig-pen environment.  NOT  REALLY. He'll check to be certain it is safe. Those things have little or nothing to do with the fact that the pig won't eat. Does he spend money on a new feed trough? NO. The pig isn't the only one that has a problem! A farmer friend shared this information. "When a group of pig farmers get together, we may spend a little time talking about the latest equipment. We'll have plenty of comments about the cost of feed and the low price the market is offering for hogs. But you can bet your bottom dollar, the major concern of everyone there is how to get those pigs to eat more. We talk about how to get them to gobble up the feed and be ready for the market as fast as possible. Teachers ought to learn something about motivation from us pig farmers. If they don't eat, life can be pretty miserable. You gotta change the feed!" Impressive! Now how does that relate to kids and reading and learning? It is a child's nature to learn. Unless there is a physical or mental handicap, the normal child wants to learn. That's God's gift to us humans. There is an innate desire to explore, to know, until someone sets up barriers. Do you remember the safe-guards you put in place because some you knew some things in the environment were dangerous for a child? Fortunately, even the aliterate originally wanted to know what to do with a book. In all probability he learned to read or is emerging from that learning process. Perhaps he was slower than others, but he did learn to decode the characters on the printed page. However, as the work-load increased and he couldn't keep up or the content did not capture his interest, he took control. He just shut down! The curriculum, his food for learning, did not appeal to him. There's more to language arts than reading! It's time to give the aliterate, the child on a different learning schedule, a different approach. That's why we developed Tweener Literacy, a Fun and Comprehensive Language Arts Curriculum. It does not lessen the importance of reading. It broadens the goal from reading to literacy with emphasis on all four language skills and increases his chances for he already has two of them pretty well developed. He needs to see the value of all four. Reading is not the only language art! Speaking is a language art. Listening is a language art. Writing is a language art. It's time for a balanced langauge arts program that encourages growth in all four language arts. WATCH for elaboration in DECEMBER!