In the News
Jerome Smith’s Reading Crusade
In the spring of 1999, The Detroit News devoted a feature to Jerome H. Smith and the reading method behind The Language Enrichment Program — and to the students it carried, in the paper’s words, from “thought to be beyond hope” all the way to high school and college.
The Detroit News, “On Detroit” section · Wednesday, May 12, 1999 · by David C. Butty · photographs by Morris Richardson II.
The story opens with a girl crying because she could not read well — the moment, nearly thirty years earlier, that set a young teacher on a lifelong course. By 1999, that teacher had spent three decades at Denby, Cass Tech, and Southeastern helping students raise their reading, their grades, and their sense of what was possible. On average, his classes gained two years of reading in a single semester.
The pages below are the article as it appeared — carefully restored from the family’s last surviving copy.
“He’s so committed. It is that kind of commitment that just makes him kind of a rare treasure in Detroit — because he is so willing to put the children first.”
“Many of my former “remedial reading students,” who were thought to be beyond hope and certain dropouts, completed high school and went on to college.”
“No matter how good a player you are, you still need to get the right grades to succeed in college and in life. I’m a living witness.”
The article, as it ran
Tap any page to view it full size.
The same program, still helping readers today
The method the article describes is the one at the heart of ReadingSteps — now available as a book you can use at home, in the classroom, or on your own.
Article and photographs © 1999 The Detroit News, reproduced here as historical press coverage of Jerome H. Smith and The Language Enrichment Program, with attribution.