The name of the nation’s largest non-profit children’s literacy group describes a key underpinning of virtually any formal education — Reading Is Fundamental.

Logically, a child who can read well is positioned to learn vast sums of knowledge, when properly motivated and coached.

On the flip side, however, a child who never masters the fundamentals of reading will almost certainly spend the rest of their life behind and struggling to catch up.

The Natchez-Adams School District discussed a plan last week that would target students who are struggling to read. We applaud the effort and suggest this may be the single-most important factor facing local educators.

Last year’s restructuring of the NASD’s middle school puts a highlight on the district’s struggles. Information discussed last week by the school board indicated that at one of the three restructured middle school academies, students are reading two to three grades behind where they should be.

That indicates the problems begin earlier than middle school, though it may worsen there.

We applaud the district for working hard to identify the problems and begin to discuss solutions.

Much attention is given to statewide test scores and school rankings, many of which for NASD have not included ideal marks.

Could the biggest factor to those bad marks simply be that we’re missing a fundamental step — reading?