Grayce Ransom; Educator, Reading Specialist

Grayce A. Ransom, an educator specializing in remedial reading who directed the National Charity League-USC School in Hollywood, has died. She was 80.

Ransom, who also directed the USC Reading Center on campus, died April 10 in a Hillsboro, Ore., nursing home after a stroke, USC said Thursday.

Originally an elementary school teacher, Ransom became a nationally recognized authority on how children learn to read, the testing of reading skills and methods of countering reading and learning deficiencies.

“It’s very exciting and fulfilling to take a child who can’t cope with schooling and turn him into a normal, happy youngster,” she said in a 1974 interview with the USC News Service.

Ransom suggested that parents convey their own pleasure with books to young children, read to them and point out common written words like the names of breakfast cereals. Teachers, she advised, should assess a child’s various learning skills individually and teach at the child’s level.

“One thing people don’t usually realize is that reading is so tied up with the total language experience of communication processes--reading, speaking, listening, writing,” she told The Times in 1967.

The school she directed provided a complete curriculum with individualized instruction for children with learning problems. She also headed the USC Reading Center, which provided after-school help for children living near USC.

In 1972, Ransom appeared twice weekly on KNXT-TV Channel 2 for a USC educational series titled “Reading: A Map to Adventure.”

A pioneer in testing children’s reading skills, in the 1960s she developed what became known as the Ransom Reading Management System. It was adopted for California schools in the early 1970s and in 1975 Ransom outlined it in a popular book.

Three years later, she wrote a textbook for teachers, “Preparing to Teach Reading.”

A native of Michigan City, Ind., Ransom earned four degrees--at Kalamazoo College in Michigan, McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Ore., and USC.

She was a former president of the California Reading Assn. for reading teachers, was on the board of the International Reading Assn., and was on a state task force to revise frameworks for reading instruction.

Survivors include two daughters and one son, four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.