ARIANNA DE LA REE

SFA Alumnus, Tucson AZ

When I was nine, I pretended I could read, but I was just imitating everything I heard. Words, or their meaning on paper, were lost on me. I knew other kids were doing the same, and still others seemed to be reading – but we couldn’t decode how they were doing it.

Success For All was introduced to our school that September, and by the following spring I was beginning to decipher words and their meaning. It was fun. I was given books, and I treasured them – I still have them. By the following year, my teacher came home and told my mom that I was not only reading at my grade level, I was inching ahead. After that, I never looked back.

If you’d asked me before what I wanted to do in life, I wouldn’t have had an answer. But after that home visit I told my mom, “I’m going to be a teacher.”

I am a teacher, and I teach my students Success for All. It’s a gift and a right to read.