The Literacy Gap in Foster Care: What It Is and How Books Can Help

September is National Literacy Month. A time to recognize reading as a foundation for learning, connection, confidence, and opportunity. For Foster Book Club, it's also a meaningful opportunity to focus on how literacy impacts children in foster care.

What Is the Literacy Gap in Foster Care?

First, let's answer: What is the literacy gap?

The literacy gaps are the persistent differences in reading and writing skills between different groups of people. More simply stated, the literacy gaps demonstrate a lack of proficiency in basic reading and writing skills across groups and individuals after exiting the nation's education system. -- Inspired Instruction

For kids in foster care, the literacy gap can appear in several ways:

• Difficulty developing early language and phonological-awareness skills

• Reading below grade level

• Challenges with vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, or writing

• Interrupted progress after changing schools or placements

• Limited access to books that feel personally meaningful

• Low confidence or reluctance to identify as a reader

(See research about this from the University of Oxford and Queen’s University Belfast.)

This gap is not a reflection of a child’s ability or potential. It is connected to complex circumstances that may include abuse or neglect before placement, poverty, housing instability, unmet learning needs, trauma, school changes, and separation from familiar adults or siblings. Research also cautions us not to assume that foster placement itself causes low achievement. This older study by Children’s Academic Achievement and Foster Care emphasizes the importance of supporting children affected by maltreatment and social disadvantage: not blaming children or their caregivers.

Why Representation in Books Matters

Representation can help children understand that their experiences are worthy of space in literature. A child who sees a character navigating foster care, kinship care, reunification, adoption, sibling separation, or a new home may feel recognized rather than isolated.

That's why Foster Book Club started, chose our specific mission, and created our Discover Books webpage. That list includes titles featuring characters in foster care, kinship care and nontraditional families, and explores themes such as separation, belonging, and related experiences.

Books can serve as:

• Mirrors, reflecting a child’s experiences and identity

• Windows, helping children understand lives different from their own

• Doors, inviting imagination, possibility, and new ways of seeing the world

However, representation should never suggest that every child in care has the same story because foster care experiences are diverse. Book selection should always be individualized. Consider reading level, interests, culture, emotional readiness, accessibility needs, and whether a child wants a story that directly reflects foster care or simply offers a joyful escape.

How Foster Parents and Caregivers Can Help

This is an important lesson for literacy advocacy: a book alone is not a complete intervention. Books work best when children can choose them, keep them, talk about them, and enjoy them with supportive adults. Effective literacy support may also include structured instruction, tutoring, school-based intervention, language development, and individualized educational planning.

Small, consistent actions can make reading feel safe and rewarding for a child:

• Let the child choose between several books rather than assigning one.

• Keep books where the child can easily reach them.

• Invite reading without turning every session into a test.

• Read aloud, take turns, listen to audiobooks, or talk about pictures together.

• Follow the child’s interests: sports, animals, cooking, graphic novels, mysteries, poetry, or space all count.

• Use everyday reading, such as menus, game instructions, recipes, maps, and text messages.

• Celebrate effort, curiosity, and questions instead of focusing only on accuracy.

• Build a brief reading routine around a calm time of day.

• Help the child keep their books during placement changes whenever possible.

• Coordinate with teachers, educational liaisons, and case managers when additional support is needed.

Take Action This National Literacy Month

Here are ways to help close the literacy gap for children in foster care:

• Foster parents, caregivers, and CASAs: determine whether a child may benefit from tutoring, a school reading intervention, an evaluation, or other educational accommodations. Contact a group like the San Diego County Office of Education Foster Youth Services Coordinating Program, which connects foster youth with educational supports, tutoring, school-success services, and community partners.

• Browse our Discover Books page for books with foster care representation.

• Share this post with a caregiver, educator, CASA volunteer, agency, library, or community member who believes every child should have a meaningful book of their own.

Additional Resource:

• Foster Care Entry and Later Academic Achievement Among Infants Involved With Child Protective Services by the National Library of Medicine