In the form of a statement to United States Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, this paper presents an overview of reading and literacy initiatives. It begins with a brief discussion of the seriousness of reading failure in the United States and then discusses longitudinal studies conducted by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development that are underway to identify conditions that foster strong reading development, risk factors that predispose youngsters to reading failure, and instructional procedures to ameliorate reading deficits. The remaining sections of the paper address the questions of: (1) how children learn to read; (2) why some children (and adults) have difficulties learning to read; and (3) how educators and others can help children learn to read--which teaching approaches are most beneficial for which children at which states of reading development. (RS)