The United States, as a matter of policy, invests between $70,000-$108,000 in free public education for each child in this country. That's a lifetime total of at least $140,000,000,000 for the two million children of Illinois.

Even if our relationship with our children and grandchildren were not the most precious that we enjoy, it would just make good financial sense to thoroughly study how we can invest these funds most effectively.

For example, law enforcement has long recognized that 78% of juvenile crime is committed by high school dropouts. But these dropouts can be predicted with 70% accuracy by third grade, based on reading ability, G.P.A., I.Q. and prior retention. What determines G.P.A. and retention at third grade? Reading ability. I don't believe in predestination when it comes to my faith, but the link between social problems and low literacy levels is too obvious to ignore.

I was happy, proud and grateful to attend a community gathering sponsored by Dr. Sherry Eagle, Superintendent of the West Aurora School District, regarding the federal program, "No Child Left Behind." At first, when I heard about the meeting, I thought that it might be merely an outline of how misguided this federal policy is and how impossible its objective is to obtain. I have received many complaints about this well-intentioned but further expansion of the federal government's reach.

However, I was excited when Sherry stepped to the podium, skipped past any negative complaints, and focused the entire group of community leaders on the positive question, "How do we help every child succeed?" The answer was "Learn to read...start at birth." I was impressed by the statistic that 85% of all knowledge is transmitted by reading...and yes, there are more words in math books than numbers.

Then, in the material that community leaders and concerned parents were given, there was a fascinating study on the impact of parents recognizing the need to talk positively and read to their children from birth, through especially the first three years of life. Between the group that valued and had the resources to teach their kids and those whom the study claimed did not, there was a 3,000,000 "words heard" gap in vocabulary development. And, just as importantly, the ratio between positive and affirmative (encouraging) words and negative or prohibitive (critical) words was 6:1 positive to negative for those who were teaching to read and 1:2 positive to negative for those whom the study claimed were not teaching to read. School performance was very predictive from these two factors.

Several basic recommendations occurred to me beyond the fundamental prescriptions to read to our children and grandchildren, and to try to be as positive as possible (within the bounds of good disciple):

1. Parents need to value school and learning rather than pop culture.
2. We need to get it straight that it's parents' primary responsibility to educate their kids--not a teacher's.
3. Healthy children who are read to in a caring environment grow stronger physically and psychologically.
4. Make reading to your family members a "natural" process. Some of the happiest, most peaceful time in our home has been time reading to our kids at bedtime. (After reading this research, I just wish we had done more)
5. Study the facts that predict educational success. These habits are not only good for kids, but good for their parents and grandparents

The most important time of our day is the 20 minutes that we read to our children. When parents read aloud with their child 20 minutes a day from birth to five years old, they provide that child with 600 hours of pre-kindergarten, pre-literacy experience. It also communicates a variety of emotional messages like, "books are important", "reading is fun", and especially, "you are important to me".