NPR

What If You Could Change Your Child's Future In One Hour Every Week?

An educator and entrepreneur believes he's found an untapped resource to help more struggling students succeed in reading. The secret? Families.
Source: Jon Marchione for NPR

On a summer afternoon, Ciara Whelan, a teacher at a New York City elementary school, knocks on the apartment door of one of her students in the Bronx.

Melissa, the student's mother, welcomes her guest with a huge platter of snacks — shrimp rolls and dill dip. Melissa explains that this past school year — third grade — her daughter, Sapphira, fell behind in her reading because she got a phone and spent too much time messaging her friends on apps like TikTok. (We're not using their last names to protect the student's privacy.)

"I think it was not even about school itself — I think it was just distractions in class," Melissa

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