For as many as 80 percent of them, reading is their primary difficulty. If we can prevent or solve their reading problems, we can keep them out of special education classes. Better pre-reading programs should mean fewer children in special education, fewer children who disrupt their classrooms, and fewer children dropping out of high school. After all, children who can't read become frustrated with their own progress and distract their classmates who can read. I am delighted, by the way, that the President has chosen one of the experts in early reading research, Susan Neuman, to be Assistant Secretary of Education for Elementary and Secondary Education and look forward to the start of her Senate confirmation process.
Some children have a reading disadvantage even before they learn to read.
The kind of the conversations they have with their parents shapes the vocabulary they bring to the classroom. One of the best things we can do for reading, naturally, is to improve the literary environment for lower-income children through pre and early reading programs. Research shows that prevention is better than intervention. If children begin to learn how to manipulate and add sounds as young children, furthering their reading skills will be easier. Since Head Start serves 840,000 disadvantaged children, this could make a major difference.