The main gem of wisdom that I took away is that we need an army of reading tutors at a very young age, like K-3. The Reading Partners group that I belong to in Dallas, TX is exactly the prescription that the doctor ordered. We allow the children we tutor to pick a book to read to them, we do some phonics teaching as to pronunciation, word meanings, and then have the student read to us. 45 minutes, usually twice a week. The only thing I'd change, if we had enough tutors, would be to make this a DAILY one-on-one until we got the child up to proficient. Nonetheless, if you want to help out in a big little way, check out Reading Partners and help a child get that reading edge... incidentally, many third world countries have already realized that we need an army of tutors to make sure no kiddos are left behind.
