To the traditional arguments for teaching children to read can be added the contemporary idea that literacy is a tool, the necessary skill for full participation in society, and the ticket to social mobility and success. New reasons for reading books have emerged from recent gains in the understanding of the comprehension process and the nature of language and language learning. However, students whose sole exposure to reading is through stories in the basal readers encountered in most schools are not likely to develop much interest in reading. In a sampling analysis of school children, book reading time emerged consistently as the best predictor of fifth-grade comprehension, vocabulary size, reading speed, and gains in comprehension between second and fifth grade. If the goal of a more literate America is to be achieved, children must be given opportunities to read, motivation to read, and access to books, a vital ingredient. Many children do not have books at home, and the presence of a variety of books in school classrooms is absolutely crucial to reading development. Learning to read must be viewed as the process of acquiring the reading habit, and literacy must be viewed as the regular exercise of reading skills through reading books. (NKA)