A week into her second grade year, as we lay snuggling at bedtime, I asked my daughter Anna what she thinks will be the hardest part of school this year.

She sighed for a moment and then answered, Learning how to put myself into the shoes of others.

My maternal heart skipped a beat. I often find that putting myself into the shoes of others, or empathy, is one of my biggest daily challenges as a mom and as an executive.

And then I had another thought; her answer felt quaint. Its an idyllic way to think about second grade, but by third grade the stakes become much higher. Empathy is a critical life skill and always will be, but so are the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic.

Experts often cite third grade as a decisive year for students and schools. In fact, there is common folklore that asserts that public officials will forecast prison construction based on a states third-grade literacy rates.

An article in The Atlantic called this phenomenon An Urban Myth That Should Be True . The article goes on to say, U.S. prison planners dont use local third-grade reading scores to predict future inmate populations. But maybe they should.

The data shows that children who cannot read by the third grade are four times less likely to graduate than students who can read by that age. Additionally, high school dropouts are three times more likely to be incarcerated than high school graduates. So, not reading by third grade may dramatically increase ones chances of eventual imprisonment.