What About USA Kids Without Books?

What is it like for a 5-year-old child to enter kindergarten with no familiarity with books, flat images or literacy? What if that child cannot even follow simple 2-part directions? What if color names had never been mentioned to this child?
They would feel like they don't belong. They would feel dumb compared to the other children. They would suffer the same "classroom battering" reported to occur with learning disabled children. As a matter of fact, they could be defined as learning disabled because of social circumstances.
Researchers could go to their homes and find no books suitable for young children. The researchers would find that their parents were so busy keeping food on the table and a roof over their heads that they never even thought about reading to their child. Many parents might say they were never read to when they were children. Others might say that they don't feel qualified to teach their own child, so they didn't try. Another might just be too into his own despair as unemployed; or an overburdened single mom trying to do it all by herself.
In these situations, the children never feel they can make it at school. They never catch up with the more literate agemates. They drop out of high school. Jobs require High School Diplomas. they will be more likely to become outlaw entrepreneurs, or unwed teenage moms needing financial aid to exist.
No one wants these outcomes for their own child or anyone else s child. Yet over 50% of entering Kindergarteners in USA today are in this at-risk-to-fail category. See tomorrow's blog for an effort to help.