TO OUR COMMUNITY

Each generation has a duty to teach the next the skills it will need to deal with the challenges and opportunities that it will face. We are failing to do so because we are failing to teach our children how to read.

Tragically, almost two-thirds of young children in the Los Angeles area are not able to read adequately. In Los Angeles County, more than 150,000 second- and third-grade pupils are poor readers. In Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties, there are 100,000 more.

Yet reading is the basis upon which virtually all other learning depends. And if children do not learn to read by the third grade, they almost never catch up.

Research shows that children who do not learn to read are much more likely to go on drugs, much more likely to go on welfare, much more likely to go to prison and far less likely to get a good job.

Unless we dramatically increase the number of children who learn to read well, we will in the next five years consign more than 1 million to lives of poverty and distress.

Failure to teach our children to read is a catastrophe of epic proportions. But it is not inevitable. We can, in fact, teach them to read, and to read well, and shame on us if we don’t!

We must replace indifference and discouragement with leadership and action.

Indifference arises from the fact that many of us do not know how bad the situation really is. Discouragement arises from the fact that some of us do know how bad things are.

Leadership

The first thing we need is leadership.

We must stop accepting failure. Ninety-five percent of all children are capable of learning to read. That must become the standard we aim for and achieve.

* That means all parents must expect their children to learn to read and must help them do so. Parents who do not know how to read must seek help, and we must help them get it.

* It means that every reading teacher must be qualified to teach and must be held accountable for how well he or she teaches students to read.

* It means that every principal must set measurable goals for improvement in the reading skills of his or her students and then be held accountable for meeting those goals.

* It means that the state of California must require and ensure that every student is tested every year--in English. Bilingual education must lead to early reading competency in English.

* It means that arguments about the value and appropriateness of reading tests must be banished to academic journals. As flawed as they may be, current reading tests, as well as those being developed by the state authorities, are good enough. Holding everyone involved accountable for measurable results is the best guarantee we will actually get significant improvement.

Action

The second thing that is required is action.

* Parents should sit down with their children to begin to set expectations and reinforce progress. In early November, The Times will begin publishing stories, word puzzles and small essays contributed by children-- things that parents can do with young children to build reading skills.

* Schoolteachers and administrators should set out specific plans of action to ensure that every child has structured, phonics-based reading instruction. Teaching children to love reading in conjunction with a strong grounding in basic symbol-to- sound-to-meaning skills is wonderful. The so-called “whole language” approach in the absence of phonics-based training is so ineffective for most students that it borders on fraud.

* Businesses, civic groups and others should seek ways to help. Some children need tutors. Some teachers need assistants. Families and libraries need books. Over time, we will publish information to help parents and groups know what they can do to be most helpful. But we hope you won’t wait for us. The challenge is so massive we must all help--now.

Commitment

To do our part, The Times announces the launch today of a program we call Reading by 9. It is a multiyear effort designed to ensure that every child who is capable learns to read by the third grade.

As part of this effort, The Times will:

* Report in regular Page 1 articles what is working and what is not. It will spotlight those who make significant advances and it will provide guidelines, models, reading lists and other information that parents, community groups and others can use to promote improved reading performance.

* Publish the “Kids’ Reading Room”--a full page of features, six days a week starting Nov. 1, that will help children and their parents build reading skills and have fun at the same time.

* Review children’s books each week and provide special Times in Education materials for classroom use to help children learn to read.

* Publish reading test scores for every school in the Los Angeles area each year so every parent and educator can see and be held accountable for how well children are learning to read.

* Raise money to buy books, finance tutoring programs and recognize great teachers and students.

The Times itself, between what it will do in the paper and in community activities, is committing more than $5 million in the next five years. We hope other businesses, foundations and civic groups will join us so that we will have many times that to help solve this critical problem.

But it will be the priceless efforts of parents, teachers and volunteers that will be needed to change the world for these children from one that is bleak to one that is full of opportunity and promise.

We owe this to them, as they will then owe it to those who follow.