Thank you Chris for your kind introduction. Chris wears a couple of hats at the Department, and I'm very grateful to have him on my team. He's a teacher himself and a very talented one at that. In fact, he's taught me a lot about reading and how to improve classroom instruction for students. I'm honored to be here today with Chris and so many other fine educators.

I want you to know that President Bush and I are committed to helping all teachers gain the skills they need to teach reading well and keep track of students' progress. That includes special education teachers, a point that is especially notable today, the 15th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. This law says that employers can't discriminate against people with disabilities. For 15 years, it has helped people with disabilities lead more independent lives. Special education teachers are doing the same thing, and I want to recognize all of you here today.

During an interview, a reporter once asked me what my religion is. I said, "phonics." Of course I was joking. Phonics isn't a real faith, but I certainly do have faith that it's part of helping children learn. And I'm sure you do, too.

The president likes to say that teaching is a calling. It's a profession that chooses you. Millions of children across America are grateful to you for answering that call. And so am I. A couple of weeks ago, I met with the American Federation of Teachers, and tomorrow I'll be speaking at one of the Education Department's Teacher-to-Teacher workshops. And I'll tell you the same thing I'll tell them: Thank you for what you do.

What you do as reading teachers is helping kids all across our country. Something is going right out there in Reading Land. Look at the Harry Potter phenomenon. I'm all about Harry Potter lately since both my daughters excitedly got their copies the first day it came out—along with almost nine million other people in the U.S. and Britain. This is the fastest-selling book in history.

My girls, like millions of children around the world, are pouring themselves into these big, fat books. The latest Harry Potter book is setting records even though it's 652 pages long. You've got to have attention and focus to get through a 500- or 600-page book. These are literally page-turners. I can't remember any other time in my life when people were talking about a book like they're talking about this one. Harry Potter is bringing families together through reading.

My older daughter finished it in one day. My younger daughter took a week to prepare herself for it. She read the entire previous book in the series to make sure she could follow the whole story. She's already halfway through the new book. I'm thrilled.

Time magazine asked me if I thought these books had "educational value." I told them most any time kids read, that's a good thing. I know everybody here agrees with me about that! You're giving up a part of your summer vacation to be here because you believe, as I do, that every child can learn. And you know that reading is more than a pastime. In today's world, it's a survival skill. President Bush says that reading is the new civil right. He's right about that. A child who can read is a child who can learn. And a child who can learn is a child who can succeed in school and in life.

Both nine- and 13-year-olds are reading more than they used to—more than 20 pages a day, according to the latest long-term Nation's Report Card. The Report Card also found that younger students are achieving historically high scores in reading, and the achievement gap is narrowing.

The Report Card showed terrific results, and it gives us proof that this reading phenomenon isn't just Harry Potter hype. It's real. Thanks to you, our youngest students are learning more. White students, African-American students, and Hispanic students achieved record gains. And there's more. Between white and African-American nine-year-olds, the achievement gap in reading is the smallest ever. Now that's great news!

My mother used to ask, how do you get to Carnegie Hall? Her answer was "Practice, practice, practice." Clearly, when students work harder, we get better results.

That's what Reading First is all about, too. Reading First will help you teach to every child's individual needs. It's part of a nationwide effort to challenge what President Bush calls "the soft bigotry of low expectations." A few years ago, Americans made a commitment to give all students a quality education. We dedicated ourselves to closing the achievement gap within a decade. No country has ever made such a commitment—and certainly no country as diverse economically, racially, and socially as ours.

That commitment was called No Child Left Behind. The law means what it says: we will not rest until every single child is reading and doing math at grade level. We set a big goal, and I know that each and every one of you in this room is working hard to make it happen.

The law aims high and focuses on doing what works. It brings practical, research-based tools into the classroom while respecting local decisionmaking. It doesn't tell states or school districts how to do their jobs.

We are telling states and school districts—and most importantly, teachers like you—about concepts that are proven to help children read. Reading First is the largest and most focused early reading initiative in our country's history. As hundreds of thousands of teachers learn about research-based reading instruction and share it with their students and colleagues, Reading First is helping millions of children. And it's providing you, their teachers, with high-quality, research-based support.

The goal of Reading First is to help you translate scientific insights into practical tools you can use in your classrooms. It builds on more than 20 years of research that followed over 44,000 children from age 5 into adulthood. Researchers at the National Institute of Child Health and Development and the Institute of Education Sciences tracked children who could read well, and they tracked others who couldn't read at all. The National Reading Panel looked at this and thousands of other high-quality scientific studies to determine what the research tells us about how children learn to read.

When their work was over, so was the great debate between phonics and whole-language reading instruction. More importantly, our nation had gained evidence-based insights into how children read, why some of them have more trouble reading than others, and what we can do to get all children reading well.

We learned a lot about reading and a lot about the terrible consequences of never learning to read. This is not just an education issue. It's a human issue. And it's a public health issue. If you can't read, you can't understand the label on a bottle of medicine. If you can't read, you can't keep up with advances in health care for your family. If you can't read, you can't make it in life.

Nothing is more heartbreaking than a child who thinks they're a failure because they don't know how to read. These are the students who act out and get into trouble so they can get attention—in all the wrong ways. These are the sophomores who walk off of our high school campuses—and never come back.

Before scientifically based reading instruction, reading instruction was based on abstract philosophies and untested, often harmful fads. More then 30 percent of children in fourth grade and below couldn't read. Here are some things they said. One eighth-grade girl told us, "I would rather have a root canal than read." Another said, "When I saw the teacher was going to call on me, I imagined I was Alice in Wonderland. I wanted to go down the rabbit hole and hide."

In the next few days, you're going to hear about new ways to help children who used to be considered "unteachable." And you're going to hear some very fancy words. Phonemic awareness. Phonics. Fluency. Vocabulary. Text comprehension. Bet you didn't know we talked like that in Texas.

Behind those words is what we know about the skills young children need in order to read. They have to understand that print moves from left to right. They have to understand that words are made up of sounds, and that written letters represent spoken sounds. They need to be able to decode words quickly and easily enough to understand what sentences mean. And they need to build a collection of words they know. Finally, they have to connect all these things together so that the words on the page actually mean something to them.

This is hard work they're doing, at a very early age. Reading is one of the most sophisticated things a person can do. Think about all of those things happening in the minds of very small children. Research-based reading instruction helps them "get" reading. And when they do "get it," they say things like, "I used to feel so stupid in class. Now I think I'm not so dumb. My friends don't laugh at me anymore. I know I can do this now."

These children's progress is a credit to you. We're not "having school" at the U.S. Department of Education. The hard work of educating our children happens in real classrooms with real teachers like you. We have these concepts, and now it's up to you to use them explicitly and systematically. Even the most profound research is useless if nobody puts it into effect. So I'm counting on your commitment to use these strategies with your students. I know you can do it because you're already making progress. Your dedication is paying off in terrific ways.

I don't need to tell you that reading opens the door to other critical subjects such as math, history, science, literature, geography, and much more. Young, capable readers can succeed in these subjects and develop confidence in their own abilities. They might even start reading Harry Potter for pleasure. And it all starts with you. You're showing these children that they can achieve in school and beyond school.

When they come into your classrooms, many of your students don't speak English very well. Many are already behind the curve in phonemic awareness by the time they start kindergarten. So they're intimidated. And they're at-risk of struggling academically for years to come.

Teachers like you have told me there are real issues around students who have limited English proficiency. And I want to make sure that while we're holding people accountable for their progress, we're also being sensible.

You have faith in your students. And I have faith in you. That's why the Education Department continues to invest in significant new research on how to teach children who didn't grow up with English. We want to help them learn the language and excel in school. We have invested in this, and we will continue to invest.

By attending this conference, you're investing too. You're investing in your careers and in the future of our country. You know what it's like to see a child get carried away by a story. Every day that you look into the eyes of those 5-, 6- and 7-year olds, you can imagine what those children will be like when they are older. When you teach your students to read, you can guide their futures.

When I was in school, I had a teacher named Miss Brown who was a big influence on me. I know many of your students will remember you long after they leave your classrooms. There are a lot of Miss Browns here today—and Mr. Browns too—who have seriously improved the quality of children's lives.

Miss Brown helped instill in me a love of reading that has lasted my entire life. When I was in school, back in the olden days, my favorite book was Charlotte's Web by E.B. White. That Wilbur sure was SOME PIG! In my line of work, I end up reading a lot of nonfiction, but I try to make time for novels, too. I just finished The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, who was born in Afghanistan. Mrs. Bush recommended it to me. It's great.

I also just read Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat, about technology and globalization. Sometimes I wonder how I got from Charlotte's Web to globalization and sharing books with the first lady of the United States. But I know it all started with a love of reading.

This conference provides you with an opportunity to learn from experts on reading instruction. When you take these concepts home, I hope you will share them with your colleagues. And most importantly, I encourage you to let them guide your teaching. Working together, we can—and we will—make sure all children can read and realize their dreams. And it doesn't get much better than that.

Thank you again for coming. Each and every day, you're making children's lives better.

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