Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, a show dedicated providing you with the knowledge, skills, insights, and encouragement you need to live a rich and meaningful life now while building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less.

My name is Joshua Sheets. I'm your host and today is Friday, February 17, 2023, though you might not know it due to the absence of music today is Friday, Q&A. Apologies. I went to start everything just before the show and it has disappeared from the places where it was supposed to be and I don't have the backup systems at my fingertips.

So if you're new to the show, welcome each and every Friday here at Radical Personal Finance, when I can arrange the appropriate technology.

We do a live Q&A show, works just like call in, talk radio, you call in, talk about anything that you want, ask me any questions that you want, opine on anything that you want, you set the course of the call.

And so I do that each and every Friday when I can arrange the appropriate recording setup.

If you would like to gain access to one of these Friday Q&A shows, you can do that by becoming a patron of the show, go to patreon.com slash Radical Personal Finance, patreon.com slash Radical Personal Finance and that will gain you access to one of these shows.

We begin with a net in North Carolina, a net welcome. How can I serve you today?

Hi Joshua, I have a question for you. I am starting a third grade reading literacy website for my county and I wanted to know what three things would you have on the website and why?

I would, I love the question. A specific question creates great answers. So number one thing I would have on the website is I would have a

some compelling way to demonstrate so first couple of questions. Who are you hoping will be looking at your website?

Okay, so let me give you a bad, I am not a reading specialist. I'm a math major, but I am concerned about reading my county is like 17 points behind state and African American students are at the bottom.

And so I went to people to try to get some help, nobody's interested. So I went to school to learn how to code and I have gathered some resources. I bought that book that you mentioned in the, I think was the read along.

And so I'm just trying to, I'm trying to gather resources. This is just a first started this just putting resources that we have in the county already.

And so I'm looking towards parents to begin with and maybe the children, the students.

Right. So the first most important thing I think is to persuade people of the value of reading. If you hear how I try to talk about it, I try to demonstrate a little bit of the clear and obvious, the clear and obvious research that exists.

Excuse me on how incredibly influential reading is on all of the metrics that we care about reading helps to improve academic outcomes substantially reading improves empathy reading helps children to be more successful reading is is is the corner, it is the cornerstone thing in the read aloud handbook.

Jim, release the author, which is the book that I think you're referring to Jim, release talks about it and he says if somebody created a pill that would deliver all of the academic benefits of reading there would be a line for miles and miles around.

It is these single most important thing that can happen it can help it can help children to improve their test scores academics across the cross the board.

And so I think the first thing is just to demonstrate a little bit of the research to inspire people that this is fundamentally the thing that can alter the course of someone's life.

The second thing that I think is important is to emphasize the value of reading aloud and so I would focus I didn't talk much I didn't in the episodes that have been publicly released I haven't talked about audiobooks.

But I think the best gateway drug especially for poor families for families where parents are working et cetera the gateway drug that you want to get hook kids hooked on is audiobooks.

I see that as the key thing because if somebody listens to lots of stories read aloud that person is far more likely to eventually become a skilled and fluent reader with with his eyes if he's read lots had lots of stories read aloud.

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