ABSTRACT
The structure of our knowledge is so closely entwined with the structure of our language that it may seem foolhardy to try to disentangle them. Yet it is necessary to do so in order to make some assessment of the consequences of using language, especially the language of literate prose, as the predominant means of instruction in the schools. The representations of reality associated with oral language and those associated with written text are important because they serve to differentiate the conception of reality that is a part of everyday practical experience from the picture of reality coded in formal academic disciplines. The history of the attempt to create autonomous text, statements that in fact say what they mean, is neither well established nor well known. There is an overwhelming wealth of reading programs developed by publishers to teach children to read. Textbooks have improved gradually since Comenius first popularized them in the common schools in the seventeenth century.
