A child's success in learning to read in the first grade appears to be the best predictor of his or her ultimate success in schooling as well as all of the events and outcomes that correlate with that. Yet, across the research literature reviewed for a recent book, "Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning about Print," children's first-grade reading achievement appears to depend most of all on how much they know about reading before they get to school. Differences in reading potential do not seem to be strongly related to poverty, handedness, dialect, gender, intelligence quotient, mental age, or to other such difficult-to-alter circumstances. Differences appeared to be due instead to learning and experience--and specifically to learning and experience with print and print concepts. Such differences can be taught away--provided that teachers have the knowledge, sensitivity, and support to do so. (RS)