How reading can change the world

Learn to read.

Then, read to learn.

That's the insidious plot behind Dave Eubanks and Greta Gissel giving all those jingle books away to local school kids. And you thought they were merely caught up in the spirit of Christmas!

Eubanks, a recently retired teacher who now serves on the Coeur d'Alene School Board, and Gissel, a program coordinator, had initially set out to raise 3,000 new or gently used books for children in the district's 10 elementary schools. Because this community is extraordinary, roughly 16,000 books were donated. Targeted specifically for kids in kindergarten through third grade, the Jingle Books drive was geared toward many children who don't own a single book. Now each of them has three. But short-term benevolence actually takes a back seat to a much bigger and broader goal.

Learn to read. Then, read to learn.

Eubanks is a literary evangelist who's compiling research showing the tremendous rewards when third-graders are actually reading at the third grade level. Societal air-raid alarms should be going off when parents and educators fail to ensure third-graders read at that level. According to Eubanks' research, that's where a dramatic link to lifelong success or stultifying disappointment awaits our kids.

Not only do adequate readers as a group go on to accomplish more educationally and in their work careers, but their positive impact on society is in part embodied in the damage they don't do. Again, as a group, they don't tend to rely on welfare. They don't commit serious crimes. They don't fill jail and prison cells. Illiterates do.

If that sounds like fiction, do your own research. We've done a lot of reading on the subject, and Eubanks' assertions ring true.

As a nation, a state and as individual school districts, the movement to reform education could take a multitude of shapes at almost limitless expense. But to make a tremendous, positive and nearly immediate improvement, focus on one thing: Ensure third-graders read at the third-grade level.

Thanks to Eubanks, Gissel and many generous donors, that effort is well under way in the Coeur d'Alene School District.