Over one-third of America's adults are living lives diminished by how poorly they learned to read:

"An estimated 93 million adults out of a total adult population of around 221 million are at basic literacy levels or below basic. People who are below basic literacy levels can’t carry out the everyday functions that they would normally pursue in American society. It means that they can’t read a bus schedule and see how to get across town. It means that they can’t use most of the self-service ATMs. It means that they can’t fill out the average job application to try to get a job or get a better job. Those who are considered at basic literacy levels are still operating on a very rudimentary level in terms of math skills and in terms of reading capabilities, being unable to draw simple conclusions from reading a column in a newspaper or reading a newspaper editorial that may be comparing candidates in a local election." Robert Wedgeworth, President, ProLiteracy (Commenting on 2005 National Assessment of Adult Literacy Report - COTC interview)

Tens of millions of children are in danger of joining them.

Note: 4th grade data from NAEP 2005 report - 12th grade data from NAEP 2002 report

Reading improficiency perpetuates socio-economic, racial, and ethnic inequities.

"Approximately 70% of young African-American kids can't read. 70%! If you look at Hispanic kids, 65-70%! When we do our studies and identify kids at risk for reading failure, we know that the majority of those kids who are at risk and who will hit the wall as they learn to read are kids from poverty." - Dr. G. Reid Lyon, Branch Chief, National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (COTC interview)

The cost to the nation is hundreds of billions of dollars each year.

"Yes, absolutely. No question that the price tag is hundreds of billions of dollars; both to support the normal acquisition of reading and certainly to deal with the consequences of reading failure." - Dr. Grover Whitehurst, Director Institute of Education Sciences, Assistant Secretary of Education, U.S. Department of Education (COTC interview)

Other costs are less obvious. Blaming and shaming themselves for the confusion they experience, those who experience protracted difficulty learning to read are in danger of developing learning disabling, aversions to learning.

"Spending any amount of time in classrooms where children are working on beginning reading instruction, you can almost watch children who are struggling begin to turn off and exhibit behaviors that are going to interfere with their learning. Beginning to develop these sort of defensive postures - sometimes it looks like inattentiveness, sometimes it looks like "I don't care," and sometimes it looks like "I am interested in anything but this." So it can take a lot of different forms, but nonetheless you can see kids do whatever they need to do to protect themselves."  - Dr. Alex Granzin, School District Psychologist, President, Oregon School Psychologists Association (COTC interview)

"Very few of us have paid sufficient attention to the specific emotions triggered in children as they begin to read. Yet any impediment to mastery of the confusing code that connects spoken and written English must trigger shame, the emotion that stops all useful thought. So painful does shame become in the public arena of the schoolroom that our children swiftly divide into two streams and two futures purely on the basis of their response to the shame that accompanies the struggle to decode our written language.." - Dr. Donald L. Nathanson, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Jefferson Medical College (COTC interview)

Reading improficiency not only endangers academic achievement, it endangers emotional health.

"I think the main thing to emphasize for anyone who has worked with a child or with an adult who has a reading problem, either who is low literate or is just struggling with reading, is that it is very apparent that it is the lost human potential, the lost self-esteem...that is the most poignant. And, in the end it's the most significant, because the loss in self-esteem is what leads to a whole host of social pathologies that are very difficult to look in the face. Crime, substance abuse, and the school drop out rate, any of those things - they are very difficult to face. And there is a line to be drawn between low literacy skills and those social pathologies." - James Wendorf, Executive Director, National Center for Learning Disabilities (COTC interview)

Considering the number of people whose lives are seriously-adversely affected, this learning to read engendered aversion to learning is the nation's greatest learning disability.

"Yes, it is the national learning disability." - Dr. Louisa Moats,Sopris West

"Oh absolutely, absolutely." - Dr.Edward Kame'enui, Commissioner for Special Education Research, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education

"No doubt about it." - Dr.Alex Granzin, Oregon School Psychologists Association

"I agree with you." - Carol H. Rasco President, RIF Reading is Fundamental

More children are more at risk for life-harm due to reading difficulties then from all other diseases, disorders, disasters and crimes combined.

"Yes, it's as big a problem as there is." - Chris Doherty, Ex-National Program Director, Reading First Program, U.S. Department of Education (COTC interview)

"Not only do they face a great risk because it changes their quality of life, their length of life and everything about their lives, but we all face a great risk because it costs us a huge amount of money. It costs us a huge burden in terms of our national vision and it also means that we are not as competitive in the global society and not as big contributors to the global society as we could be and should be." - Dr. Kimberly Thompson Director, Kids Risk Project, Associate Professor of Risk Analysis and Decision Science Department of Health Policy and Management - Harvard School of Public Health (COTC interview)

It's not the children's fault.

"Reading failure for nearly every child is not the child's failure; it's the failure of policy makers, the failure of schools, the failure of teachers and the failure of parents."      - Dr. Grover Whitehurst, Director Institute of Education Sciences, Assistant Secretary of Education, U.S. Department of Education (COTC interview)

Reading requires the formation of artificial processing circuits in our brains that will automatically process the 'code' of our writing system into a simulated experience of language.

"When we read, we are taking a code and we are getting instructions from that code to do a series of cognitive processes. And so what we are actually doing is enacting a cognitive performance in response to a set of instructions." - Johanna Drucker, Ph.D., Robertson Chair in Media Studies, Professor, Department of English, University of Virginia, author of The Alphabetic Labyrinth (COTC interview)

Children and adults who struggle to learn to read are experiencing a form of confusion that those who read well no longer experience, they are experiencing a form of confusion that is unnatural to their organism.

"I think that is an interesting and good way to frame things." - Keith Stanovich
Chair, Applied Cognitive Science, U. Toronto, Author - Reading matters: How reading engagement influences cognition. (COTC interview)

"The problem is our society's lack of insight into what is involved in acquiring literacy." - Dr. Louisa Moats, Sopris West (COTC interview)

"We need to reconceptualize what it means to learn to read and who's responsible for its success if we're going to deal with the problem." - Dr. Grover Whitehurst, Director Institute of Education Sciences, Assistant Secretary of Education, U.S. Department of Education (COTC interview).

"If I had my druthers, instructional methods wouldn't be the big deal. What would be the big deal is if teachers could ask themselves: what does it take to learn to read?" - G. Reid Lyon - Ex-Branch Chief, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (COTC Interview)

Warning: Protracted difficulty in learning to read can lead to maladaptive mental and emotional habits that endanger the general health of learning.  Above all else, do no harm. www.childrenofthecode.org

The Children of the Code project has four major components:

1. A three hour Public Television, DVD and Web documentary series;
2. A ten-hour college, university, and professional development DVD series;
3. A series of teacher and parent presentations and seminars;
4. A cross-indexed website/database containing audio, video and transcripts with the world's leading experts in fields related to reading.
    

   "The Code and the Challenge of  Learning to Read It" talks, seminars, workshops, and conference presentations

Each has five major themes:

1. The history of the code and its effects on the world around and within us;
2. The cognitive, emotional, academic, and social challenges involved in learning to read;
3. How the structure of the code effects learning to read it;
4. How the brain learns to read;
5. How teachers and parents can help children learn to read better.

Videos - Introductory Article - Index of Interviews - Live Events 
Feedback - Interested? - Learning - Help Us - Contact Us

Comments About our Project

"Wow, that's interesting. I think that's a lovely description of it (the challenge of learning to read). It really is a virtual reality, it is a matrix...I'm impressed with the cast that you've assembled; it's certainly a very impressive group." - Dr. Tim Shanahan, Chair National Literacy Panel

"It's a wonderful thing that you're doing. I appreciate the scope of what you're doing. It's called information improvement which is the prime issue in knowledge advancement. How do you put things together in ways that are easily understandable and communicable to other people? You're talking about a big thing. People see pieces of it and you're putting together a whole lot of things that no individual one of us has a grasp on." - Todd Risley, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, University of Alaska.

"It's a wonderful thesis and it's so refreshing to hear you articulate it because I guess I am in total agreement with it and I have not really heard people articulate it as clearly you have... I love what you are doing." - Dr. Louisa Moats, Sopris West

"What really attracted me to your project was its originality and breadth. I really like that you have assembled such a diverse group of experts in a variety of areas pertaining to reading."  - Paula Tallal, Ph.D., Board of Governor's Professor of Neuroscience Rutgers, Co-Founder, Scientific Learning Corporation

"This project has the potential to revolutionize how America thinks about literacy. Every citizen in America needs to hear this message and make a commitment to address the problem." - Linda Page-Williams, Educator, Seminar Attendee

"Your approach is a novel and promising way of tackling a long-standing serious social problem, the functional illiteracy of many young people in the United States and other English-speaking countries." - Robin Allott - Linguist, Author of the Motor Theory of Language Origin 1989 and of The Great Mosaic Eye 2001 (on the origin and usefulness of the alphabet) Sussex England

"I enthusiastically support your Children of the Code project. I have worked with children and adolescents who are struggling readers for 20 years. Changing the paradigm is so important and your goal to impart the history and create a new understanding of how we read is essential for teachers and parents, if we are to eliminate the epidemic of reading failure in this country." - Reading Specialist, Florida

"It's great. I think this is fascinating. It's wonderful that you're doing this. I would love to have our people involved in it. We would love to be in continued cooperation with you on it." - Sandra Feldman, Past-President, American Federation of Teachers

"I've been floating in rarified air for the past day or so and loving it. ... I have been on an odyssey of discovery that is in every way thought-provoking and enlightening." - Veteran Teacher

"Your work is extraordinary and I don't want to miss any of your offerings. I will use your transcripts in my reading courses at the University." - University Professor

"Finding the Children of the Code information was a huge "a ha" and mental high-five "yes!" moment for me. I want to be a part of the movement." - Language Arts Teacher

"I have been doing personal research for 11 months trying to educate myself on dyslexia and related disorders and your site is the first to really talk in-depth about how learning to read affects ones self-esteem." - Parent

"I'm currently working on my final project for my masters in learning disabilities. This program is my research. It's great." - Graduate Student

"This is a fantastic website, and the interviews were well-researched and informative. Thank you for doing this. You will help countless parents, educators, and most importantly, children." - Reading Specialist

More Comments from Literacy Leaders, Event Attendees and Site Visitors

"The Code and the Challenge of  Learning to Read It" talks, seminars, workshops, and conference presentations

Why is Reading so Important? * The State of Reading in the English Language World * What is Reading? * What is Language? * The Origins of Writing * The Alphabet Effect. * Code Cued Speech. * Extending the Dimensions of Abstraction: The Effects of Code Processing on Consciousness * The Greeks, The Roman Empire, and Latin * Written Latin Collides with Spoken English * The Printing Press and the Bible * Code Inertia * The Origin of Phonics * Alphabet Reform * Spelling Reform * Whole Language * Reading Wars * Cognition and Affect * How the Brain Creates a Mind that can Read * How Reading Effects Consciousness, Intelligence, Emotional Health, and Overall Learning * Inside the Brains of Struggling Readers * Dyslexia * The Downward Spiral of Reading Shame * The Matthew Effect: the Upward Spiral of Reading Confidence * Reading is a Virtual Reality Experience * Reframing Our Perspective: READING IS A HUMAN-TECHNOLOGY INTERFACE PROCESS * An Anatomical View of the Code's Ambiguity * Building Blocks: Phonemic Awareness, Decoding, Disambiguating, Assembling, Automaticity, Fluency, Comprehension * Processing Ecology and Speed * Cultural and Linguistic Relevancy * Meaning * Meaning Centric Instruction * Systematic Code Instruction * Consciously Meaningful Unconscious Exercise, Converging Evidence, A Survey of Best Practice Research.

Videos - Introductory Article - Index of Interviews - Live Events 
Feedback - Interested? - Learning - Help Us - Contact Us