Learning “Sometimes I wonder if the young read novels and poems because they are the only ones who can.” Irina Dumitrescu is an essayist and scholar of medieval literature. She wrote this essay while watching her son learn to read. She notes that we are always learning to read. “‘Read,’ like ‘love’ or ‘think,’ has a thousand meanings pressed into one deceptively elementary verb. We use it in a way that tends towards simplicity. It is the connection of sounds and concepts to standardized squiggles, to trails of ink on squares of paper, scratches carved into sticks, glowing lines of curved neon, careful stitches poked through a tight canvas. It can seem a basic skill, at least to those who have left the learning of letters behind.” Article: Reading Lessons