Polly Bath: When you learned to read, anybody in here really remember when it clicked? Remember when you first learned to read? When did it click? When it did click, what did you want to do more than anything in the world?

Read! You wanted to read everything. If all you knew how to read was four, or five, or six words, then you would read that book, “Goodnight Moon” forever.

If you have little kids and you know that book, it says the same thing over and over and over. Same with “Brown Bear, Brown Bear,” over and over and over. Why do kids love those books? They can read them.

They can read them independently. They reach mastery very quickly. That’s why they don’t care if you give them a new book right away. They want to read that one over and over and over.

For a kid who has no confidence, I would be so inclined to send them home with homework that I know they can do, even if it’s the same thing they did last night. The more you’re able to obtain mastery, the more you build confidence. The more you build confidence, the more you’re willing to take risks.

If you don’t have those things underneath you, you will not be a risk taker. You’re going to be always afraid of failure.