Children in foster care fare worse than their peers on many indicators of academic adjustment, exhibiting high rates of special education placement, discipline referrals, and school dropout. Children in foster care also lag significantly behind their peers in reading, writing, numeracy, and language and perform significantly worse on measures of academic and socioemotional adjustment compared to children from low socioeconomic backgrounds.
Given the elevated risks for poor school adjustment among children in foster care, there is a need for research on the potential early precursors of school difficulties with this population. Additional knowledge about the reading development of children at risk for academic failure because of foster care placements could expand the scientific knowledge base about academic skill development in general, and could also allow service providers to tailor preventive intervention services to the needs of such populations.
Early reading skills are an important predictor of later academic and behavioral adjustment in the general population. Children who struggle with reading in the first and second grades are likely to exhibit difficulties into middle and high school. Poor reading skills have also been linked to behavioral difficulties at school, which may increase the likelihood of problems such as antisocial behavior and juvenile delinquency. In one of the few studies to examine reading skills in school-aged children in foster care, Fantuzzo and Perlman (2007) suggested that children in out-of-home placements show markedly poorer reading skills than their peers as early as second grade. Reading difficulties may already be well-established by the second grade; thus, identifying risk factors for poor reading prior to school entry might help in preventing later problems.
(All above text was copied from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3159895/). I did remove some portions to shorten it; please consider reading the full article.)
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By providing books to these children and young adults who are being placed with families that are not their own, you are giving them an opportunity to better themselves. To learn. To create. To dream. To hope for a better tomorrow. Many don't have the option to go into a Barnes and Noble to pick out new books or to order from the Scholastic programs at their current school because they might not know if they'll be in that same school when the books arrive to receive them. Or, worse yet, they may not have even been enrolled in school.
When you donate to this cause, you are making an impact in the future of these young minds. If you need a receipt from RISE Services, they will be happy to provide that for tax purposes, as well. You just let me know...
Thank you for your generosity and for this gift of hope.
