"Teaching children and adults to read, write, and comprehend is not only our essential duty and investment in America's future; it is also an act of love."
– John Corcoran

Why John Can Read

by Bill Owens
San Diego Magazine - August, 2000

John Corcoran had made it. He was graduated from college, taught high school for 17 years and made millions in real estate and land development. And he accomplished all that despite a hidden handicap: Corcoran was illiterate.

He revealed his secret in 1987, going public before a group of 200 San Diego business executives. Corcoran chronicled a lifetime of suppressed shame and artful subterfuge. Cheating on exams. "Misplaced" reading glasses. A deceitful skein of lies, evasions and slick tricks worthy of a master spy.

"My personal story," says the Oceanside resident, "is really the personal story of millions and millions of adults who have graduated from high school and can't even read their diplomas."

He points out that, as a child, he never attempted to "trick the system." Teachers told his parents he was unmotivated. Nevertheless, he ascended academically as a result of "social promotion," a practice Corcoran regards as an ongoing failure of America's educational approach. "The system isn't much different today than it was 40 years ago," he says. "The direct instruction of literacy stops in about the fourth grade."

Direct and effective instruction didn't come his way until age 48, says Corcoran, who in 1986 sought and found a "miracle worker" in a Carlsbad Library Literary Center reading tutor named Eleanor Condit. When his reading ability reached a sixth-grade level, he says, "I thought I'd died and gone to heaven." The journey from nonreading student and educator to capable author resulted in Corcoran's 1994 book, "The Teacher Who Couldn't Read," written with Carole C. Carlson.

His mission these days is to raise awareness of the "national epidemic of illiteracy in America." Since Corcoran's courageous disclosure 13 years ago, he's become a widely sought speaker and advocate for literacy and has addressed the issue in 44 states and three countries. The former teacher has appeared on 20/20, Larry King Live and Oprah. Corcoran estimates he's "spoken to about 100 million people" via the media. He's also shared his message with inmates at Soledad and Sing Sing prisons, and twice testified before Congress on illiteracy.

Corcoran has referred to illiterate Americans as "native aliens." He says "one of the worst things about being illiterate is that it disconnects you from the dominant literate society. Adults who can't read, write or spell are suspended, in a sense, in childhood. There's a hole in their soul."

By emphasizing the proper teaching of reading, Corcoran asserts, "we'll bring a lot of our people home to full citizenship and full participation, intellectually, academically and spiritually."

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