THE CADRE, TUES., APRIL 2.1974 Page 6

an areayou m1

The other day I was sifting through some junk in my desk and I found. among other things, a little yellow pam— phlet. I couldn't remember for sure. but I thought I picked it up at registration last fall. well, anyway it doesn't matter where I got it, I didn't read it. At least not until I found it in my desk.

I was sort of glad I found it though, because I thought it might make a good, useful sort of story (no scoop or anything mind you) for the Cadre.

Anyway, the skinny little yellow pamphlet was about the reading lab. Not knowing where or what it was all about, I went over to Student Services to find out. They sent me to Mrs. Manovill who works in the library and is the instructor at the reading lab. She took me over to the lab which is in the chapel building, just down the hall from the health center.

The lab itself is afismall room containing about fiour machines which looked rather like slide projectors. Mrs. Manovill has an even smaller room off that one for inter— views and such.

When I had finished looking the place over I asked Mrs. Manovill a few questions a-

CAII PROPOSAL'A’BE SERIOUSLY CONSIDERED AFTER 50 YEARS OF FAILURE?

-latest draft, like its pre

Inlmy mail today I received a handout from the Dean of Arts containing a "draft

bout the course. She exe plained how the machines worked and the general set- up of the course. Then she

ght explore * fi»

The reading lab course also offers practical hints for studying such as selectivity - to know what to look for and‘

went on to talk about the lab. how to skim and scan mater-

It is financed by Student Services as a service to students. It is the only reading lab in the maritimes which offers its course free of charge; Mrs. Manovill emr phasized however, that stu- dents registering for the course must be prepared to meet their committment be- cause student services doesn‘t want to pay for something that isn't being used.

The lab can handle approx- imately 403 people per sem- ester. Mrs. Manovill has two student assisstants to help her with instructions and evaluation duties° Each reading student must attend class at least once a week for one hour and spend two hours working at his or her own convenience.

Mrs. Manovill outlined the aim of the ,ab as following: "to raise reading efficiency by increasing vocabulary and speed in order to increase comprehension and concentra- tion." "Many people", she said, "think this is contra~ dictory but really, reading faster means reading ideas and not chopped up fragments of sentences."

ial more readily. "This". Mrs. Manovill said,"avoids letting students get bogged down in details."

One thing that Mrs. Manovillr

mentioned in our talk was that many students who have heard or read about the read- ing lab course, think it is

a remedial-type program. In other words they think it is only-for students with seri— ous reading problems. However. Mrs. Manovill says this is ,not true. One third of the students attending‘the,read— ing lab are above aberage~ students and readers who want to push their reading effi- ciency even higher to help them in grad school or a job. One third are average readers who know there is room for them to improve. Only one

third are below average read-s

ers. So, nomatter how good or poor a reader you are, ya can benefit from the course. well after she told me.all this: Plus how much some of her students had improved, I was still a bit disbelieveing. I asked her for a list of students this semester so I could talk to a few of them.

I interviewed three and found

curriculum for the Faculty of Arts" to be discussed at a faculty meeting on March 28. / '

Apparently-this draft is in— tended as a serious proposal for drastically revising the present arts curriculum.

This draft closely resembles Curriculum Proposal A, which was published in the Cadre, together with two other pro- posals, last semester. The

decessor, is rigidly struo ured and imposes stringent requirements upon students seeking the BA degree.

some of the highlights of this scheme are:

A "distribution" require— ment, cempelling every stu ent to take a certain nu- mber of courses in.the hum ities, social sciences and natural sciences. Foe ex-