Krashen

toc =Stephen Krashen=

Biography
Stephen Krashen is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Southern California and an expert in the field of linguistics. He is significant within our field as a proponent of wide student access to reading material because it "results in more voluntary reading."

Online Presence
Dr. Krashen's website hosts an number of short free texts and articles in PDF format related to literacy and linguistics but also hosts many "voluntary readings" that seem to pertain to the state and future of education.

Reflections
If he's got the data to back it up, who could argue with greater access to reading material for students? Krashen suggests a whole host of cumulative benefits for voluntary reading, (better writing, spelling, grammar, and a larger vocabulary) and even if these things only improved marginally, I think it would be worth it.

What struck me in some of the other articles he's written that he seems interested in the more subtle challenges involved in education and in the articles I read, also seems interested in sharing a bit of perspective about the state of education.

One particular article caught my eye regarding digitization of textbooks and the general trend of e-books and the reality of their "statistical takeover" (my quote, not his.) He made some excellent points especially regarding flaws in the collection of data that suggests that the "Kindlization" as he calls it is not as radical as popular opinion suggests. (Such as, that data was collected from Amazon.com regarding Kindle versus book sales when Amazon.com is the only market to purchase e-books in Kindle format.)

Another article that I found interesting is an article our current educators in class probably know all to well. A nice piece on ou t-of-pocket expense teachers incur for classroom supplies that often goes without reimbursement. -AAS