WHEN THE READING LIGHT WENT ON

Ramon C. Cortines, 67, a career educator, is interim superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District:

My mother read to me and made me sit still and listen. I was hyperactive, mischievous--I think my mother was developing my attention span. She made me listen, and then would ask questions as it related to comprehension. It’s like your first bank book. Then it was the library card, and then it was like piano lessons--you know, “Have you practiced this week? Have you gone to the library? Have you returned the book?”

I wouldn’t get toys, I’d get books. And I’d say “Well, how come I didn’t get toys?” I was not happy with that.

I read light literature. My mother was a very religious person, [so she’d make me read] the Bible. I also read a lot of character education things, as I look back on it--[books that demonstrated lessons] about honesty.

As I got to be 7 or 8, my mother and father encouraged me to write. So it was not just reading. They connected it [to the writing].

The books I read to my first sixth-grade class were books that reminded me of my childhood--Paul Gallico, “The Snow Goose,” “Snowflake”--that all had a moral issue. I would not tell my kids what to think, but I would say, “You need to think about this story.” And then I made them write.

I think you have to read to children. They have to understand this is a special time--with a parent, with an adult, with an uncle, with a grandpapa, with a foster parent. [They have to understand] it is my time as a child with a very important adult in my life. That bonding is so important for very young children.