Dear Editor: As a retired teacher of high school and college English, I was in full accordance with Father Robert Lauder’s recent discourse on the lack of reading in today’s students (“Importance of Reading,” June 15). Although I retired a number of years ago, I also substituted for many years thereafter.

Thus, I was able to see first-hand the message that Father Lauder conveys. And, as I finished the article I was brought back to a famous quotation by Francis Bacon, the English essayist, who once wrote: “Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.”

John J. Scibelli

Forest Hills

Editor’s note: Scibelli, 89, worked as a teacher for 43 years and substituted for 20 more.