“A house without books is like a room without windows. No man has the right to raise his children without surrounding them with books,” said Horace Mann, activist and education reformer. The summer before my freshman year, I was assigned to tutor underprivileged youth at a nearby community center. Although bright and enthusiastic, these fourth graders struggled to read even first grade stories. As everyone struggled to pronounce each syllable, blatant frustration filled their faces. Instinctively, I strived to help them with their reading, often feeding them the words they were struggling with. However, as students took turns reading these simple texts, my heart sank as I realized that just a few miles from my comfortable suburb, there were children who would soon be entering middle school, without the ability to read properly. school career, I felt a feeling of injustice. Why did I have the opportunity to read from a young age and receive advanced education when others, so close to me, did not? Furthermore, if a community adjacent to Rye and the affluent suburbs of Manhattan faces such challenges in child literacy, what does this imply for even lower-income areas? My hometown, Rye, is a comfortable suburb, with highly regarded literacy programs and education systems from kindergarten through high school. In contrast, the South Bronx is the poorest congressional district in the country and maintains inadequate literacy programs for the many poor children it is home to. The research found a stark disparity between literacy rates and programs for children in Rye and the South Bronx, respectively.......middle of article......tml>. Phalen, Earl M., Hill Harper, Robert Needlman, Perri Klass, Huilan Krenn, and Richard Robinson. « 2012 Reach out and play the video. » YouTube. January 27, 2012. YouTube, February 23, 2014. “Search Results.” Home. 2014. Contact us and read. February 23, 2014..Rich, Motoko. “Studying Language Gaps Strengthens Push for Kindergarten.” New York Times October 21, 2013. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. “Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts.” Rep. in Create a book. Sarro, Paula. “Literacy Problems and Ways to Combat These Problems in the South Bronx.” Email interview. March 28, 2014. Winderman, Kerri. “Literacy Tactics and Educational Programs in Rye, NY.” Email interview. April 10, 2014. Wollstonecraft, Mary. “A vindication of women’s rights.” Rep. in Create a book.