CONQUERING ILLITERACY - COMPANY PRESIDENT LEARNS TO READ
Daily News of Los Angeles: December 16, 1994 by Betty Kwong
Through perseverance and hard work, Chuck Prentiss climbed from glass cleaner to owner of a company that makes mirrors for special effects and satellites.
He is an artist and a past president of the Burbank Rotary Club, and he has put both his children through private schools. Prentiss himself graduated from private schools and spent 1-1/2 years in college.
For most of his life, he has managed to keep a secret from most people he encountered.
He could barely read.
Now, at 52, he finally is beginning to learn.
About a year ago, Prentiss said he saw a simple notice in an electricity bill about the Burbank Public Library's literacy program - and decided that maybe it was time he learned to read well.
Once a week since then, Prentiss has met with a volunteer tutor at the library, where he painstakingly works on skills he should have acquired in grammar school.
"A simple word like 'laugh,' I had a hell of a time with that. I was in the 'la' part of the dictionary . . . 'laf.' It's frustrating," Prentiss said, from his corner office at Keim Precision Mirrors Corp. in Burbank.
Prentiss squeaked by in school with barely passing grades by reading and re-reading only the simplest words in a sentence and then guessing at its meaning.
"I could read most of the words, except for those over six or seven letters," he said.
Prentiss is hardly alone in being a latecomer to literacy.
A 1992 State Adult Literacy Survey showed nearly one in four Californians age 16 and older have trouble comprehending a simple paragraph.
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For information on literacy programs in the Los Angeles area, call the Literacy Referral Line at (800) 707-READ. READ MORE
