ShmoopTube

Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.

Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos

Dr. Seuss: Changing the Way We Read 921 Views

Share It!

Description:

You'd have to be a Grinch not to acknowledge what a huge effect Dr. Seuss had on all of us. Horton may have heard a Who, but hey... we heard it, too.

Author:

Language:

English Language

Subjects:

Common Core Standards:

Transcript

00:01
Seuss: Changing the Way We Read, a la Shmoop. For someone who is considered mainly a children’s
00:11
author…
00:12
…Dr. Seuss has had a pretty incredible effect on the way we read.
00:15
Of course, we don’t mean that in any bizarro, Seuss-ish sense.
00:19
It’s not like we’re reading upside-down on the ceiling…

00:22
…or in the company of a couple of perilous poozers from Pompelmoose Pass.
00:28
Okay, so it’s not only about the way we read…
00:31
…it’s also about the way we interpret what we’re reading.
00:35
Wait… really?
00:38
Are we saying that Dr. Seuss left as much of an impression on each of us as literary
00:42
giants like… Homer, and Shakespeare?
00:48
We most certainly are. For one thing, we are all introduced to Seuss
00:52
early on.
00:54
Not many people make their way through The Iliad before first familiarizing themselves
00:58
with One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. Before Seuss, the only stuff youngsters read
01:04
were books like Dick and Jane…
01:06
…short, boring exercises in rote memorization…
01:09
…with no semblance of an interesting story…
01:12
…and certainly no instances of actual humor.
01:20
A lunch date with Dick and Jane would have been pretty excruciating.
01:23
They wouldn’t be able to talk about much other than the last time they saw Spot run.
01:30
Seuss’ books taught kids to learn with the use of phonics…
01:35
…the use and repetition of words representing sounds…
01:39
…rather than with memorization.
01:44
Although… we’re sure the Batman comics also did their part.
01:53
Dr. Seuss turned children’s literature on its head…
01:58
…making it genuinely fun and engaging for kids to read.
02:02
And if we discovered in our formative years that reading could actually be a… good time…
02:06
…we were more likely to continue reading into our adulthood.
02:10
Or… whatever you’d like to call our… advanced stage of immaturity.
02:14
There was plenty of weighty stuff going on beneath the surface of Dr. Seuss’ rhymes.
02:18
Many of his stories were allegories relating to communism, racism, or environmental awareness…
02:23
…but even if we couldn’t write a 40-page thesis paper about it before we turned seven…
02:28
…there was still a subconscious sense that we were being taken seriously…
02:33
…that we were being treated like grown-ups.
02:35
Pretty cool. Seuss is largely responsible for our love
02:40
of literature…
02:40
…and especially for the notion that a book doesn’t have to be cold and humorless to
02:44
be… important. The next time you pick up a copy of Infinite
02:47
Jest or War and Peace…
02:49
…first of all, we hope you stretched first…
02:52
…and second… remember that you’re probably reading the way you are because of the Doc.
Full Transcript