''Learn To Read'' is an adult educational TV series that consists of 30 programs, hosted by entrepreneur and
literacy
Literacy in its broadest sense describes "particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing" with the purpose of understanding or expressing thoughts or ideas in written form in some specific context of use. In other words, hum ...
advocate
Wally Amos
Wallace "Wally" Amos, Jr. (born July 1, 1936) is an American television personality, entrepreneur, and author from Tallahassee, Florida. He is the founder of the Famous Amos chocolate-chip cookie, the Cookie Kahuna, and Aunt Della's Cookies gour ...
. Co-instructors include
Doris Biscoe (who was an anchorwoman for
WXYZ-TV
WXYZ-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Detroit, Michigan, United States, affiliated with ABC. It is owned by the E. W. Scripps Company alongside independent station WMYD (channel 20). Both stations share studios at Broadcast House on ...
in
Detroit
Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...
,
Michigan
Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...
) and
Charlotte Scot.
Caitlyn Jenner (then Bruce) guest-starred on the first episode. This was based on 27 million Americans having almost no reading skills. On Friday, there is a review of the week. The final program reviews the entire series.
In every episode (excluding programs 1, 5, 10, 15 and 30) a "Getting Along" segment is used, with either Sylvia Glover or Jim Johnson (both formerly of WXYZ's ''Good Afternoon Detroit'') as instructors.
Aside, there's Les the Letter Man and Nancy the Word Woman. Finally, there is Billy Green, referred to as the "Book Guy", telling viewers to get their workbook.
''Learn to Read'' was produced by
Kentucky Educational Television
Kentucky Educational Television (KET) is a state network of PBS member television stations serving the U.S. Commonwealth of Kentucky. It is operated by the Kentucky Authority for Educational Television, an agency of the Kentucky state governm ...
in association with WXYZ-TV (the copyright is owned by both KET and E.W. Scripps, then Scripps Howard Broadcasting), funded by the
Kmart Corporation, the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is an American publicly funded non-profit corporation, created in 1967 to promote and help support public broadcasting. The corporation's mission is to ensure universal access to non-commercial, ...
and donors to PBS. The program was produced at WXYZ's studios in
Southfield, Michigan
Southfield is a city in Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 76,618.
As a northern suburb of Detroit, Southfield shares part of its southern border with Detroit. The city was original ...
, with additional production done by KET in Kentucky.
The program was televised on many
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...
member stations, as well as
syndicated to commercial stations. The program was also seen locally on WXYZ-TV, generally weekday mornings at 5AM.
Episodes are available online through YouTube.
Episode status
While episodes originally consist of a 6-week daily course, some stations air episodes on a less-frequent basis, as little as once a week. New York City PBS station
WNET
WNET (channel 13), branded on-air as "Thirteen" (stylized as "THIRTEEN"), is a primary PBS member television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey, United States, serving the New York City area. Owned by The WNET Group (formerly known as the ...
was the last PBS affiliate to air the show and aired it daily (sometimes twice daily) before pulling it from its lineup in 2009.
Initially, ''Learn To Read'' was produced solely by WXYZ-TV in Detroit. It was originally offered free to every ABC affiliated television station in the United States by VP/General Manager Jeanne Findlater, who created the idea and wrote the format. She sold the entire underwriting costs to Chrysler, K-Mart, Kroger, and McDonald's after convincing them that they had to use their commercial time to promote literacy, not their products. On behalf of the station, she received the national Charles W. Scripps Literacy Award presented by Barbara Bush.
''Learn To Read'' was later syndicated to PBS state network Kentucky Educational Television, who marketed it throughout the United States. In the first broadcast, Findlater scheduled the program at 5:30 am and at 10:00 am. The idea for the early morning time slot came from Doug Frazier years before. Frazier, then president of the UAW-CIO, urged Findlater to create a literacy series and run it at the end or start of a work-shift. Findlater said ratings for the early morning slot weren't available but many letters sent to her indicated that those viewers did not want their kids to know they couldn't read. The series has been widely used in prisons. Estimates of total viewership (from 2002) were over 18 million people.
Cast
* Wally Amos as the host
* Doris Biscoe as a co-instructor
* Charlotte Scot as a co-instructor
*
Sylvia Glover as herself, in some Getting Along segments
* Jim Johnson as himself, in some Getting Along segments
* Billy Green as himself
* Les Raebel as Les the Letter Man
See also
*
Operation Alphabet (TV series)
*
A Place of Our Own
Notes
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Learn To Read
1990s American television series
Adult education television series
PBS original programming
1987 American television series debuts
2009 American television series endings
Reading and literacy television series
Television in Detroit
Kentucky Educational Television