The National Jewish Coalition for Literacy is the organized Jewish community's vehicle for mobilizing tutors and reading partners for at-risk children in kindergarten through 3rd grade. Our mission is to bring the skills and the concerns of America's Jews to bear on the scandal of illiteracy by effecting a dramatic increase in the organized Jewish community's involvement in the battle against illiteracy and in the number of Jews involved in that battle. The importance of this effort can scarcely be exaggerated. The ability to read by the end of the third grade is a sensitive litmus test: those who can are likely to succeed in later grades and in life; those who cannot are likely to be in continuing academic trouble and such trouble is very often a presage to significant downstream problems. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress