By Ted Hoskinson, Founder and President, Roots and Wings
Every so often, a new study puts hard data behind something teachers have understood for years. Research published this summer in the journal Science, and covered by NPR, is one of those moments. It goes straight to the heart of why Roots and Wings exists.
A team at WashU Medicine in St. Louis analyzed brain scans from nearly 12,000 children ages 9 and 10 who are part of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, a long-term national study funded by the National Institutes of Health. The researchers compared 649 factors that shape a child’s life, including sleep, screen time, IQ, parenting, mental health and medical history. They wanted to see which ones were most strongly reflected in how a child’s brain is built and how it functions.
The results weren’t close. Of the 40 factors most closely tied to brain function, 37 were socioeconomic. Family income, homeownership, neighborhood poverty, access to transportation and the resources available in a child’s community outweighed everything else the team measured. Scott Marek, the study’s first author, said he expected opportunity to matter. He just didn’t expect it to matter this much.
What stood out to me most was where those differences showed up. They appeared mainly in parts of the brain tied to movement and the senses, areas that are highly sensitive to sleep and stress. The regions responsible for thinking and problem-solving were far less affected. The researchers believe poverty shapes the developing brain largely through everyday burdens like poor sleep and chronic stress.
Dr. Nico Dosenbach, the study’s senior author, summed it up simply: “It’s not a less-smart brain. It appears to be a tired and stressed brain.”
The study also found that once socioeconomic conditions were accounted for, roughly 70% of the links earlier research had drawn between brain scans and IQ scores were no longer statistically significant.
That matters for the children we serve. Project UpLift works with students primarily in grades 1 through 3 at 24 Title I public schools across Palm Beach County who are reading one or two grade levels behind. They begin the year in the bottom 25% of their class. It would be easy to look at that starting point and draw the wrong conclusion about what these kids can do. This research is one more reason not to.
We have always said a child’s zip code should never determine their ability to read, learn and thrive. Now science is showing just how deeply a zip code can reach into a child’s life, and that what looks like a gap in ability is often a gap in opportunity.
This study didn’t examine reading programs, and no after-school program can erase neighborhood poverty on its own. But the researchers pointed to something hopeful: sleep and stress are things we can change. Opportunity is too.
That’s what Project UpLift provides. Students get extra time and targeted instruction in their own school, from certified teachers who know them, in groups of 10 or fewer. The program is free to families. It offers a safe, consistent place to learn after the bell rings, and it celebrates students for showing up and trying.
The results bear that out. During the 2024-2025 school year, 94% of Project UpLift students made reading gains, and 89% of our third graders were promoted to fourth grade, performing on par with classmates who didn’t start the year behind.
Every child deserves the chance to show what they’re capable of. When we widen opportunity, we give them that chance. If you believe a child’s potential shouldn’t depend on their circumstances, we’d love for you to join us in our mission to support and encourage children’s reading skills.
