Students Rising Above

The Huffington Post has an article on a group called SRA (Students Rising Above) here.  SRA provides help for students who have overcome great obstacles but still need help in completing college and finding a good job.  My comment:

My experience with kids from disadvantaged backgrounds supports this kind of help.  Really, what SRA is doing is proving the kind of financial, social, and emotional support that loving, upper-class families provide for their children.

But my experience also suggests that this kind of help is not enough.  The underlying problem for most of these students is an academic one:  they don't have the skills to succeed in college courses.  Making a huge effort, early on in these children's lives, to bring them to a love and habit of reading will help ensure they have the academic credentials to take advantage of the SRA help.

Avid readers read better, write better, concentrate better, and have wider frames of reference that make all learning easier.