AI Is Here. What Students Still Need Most.

AI: Protecting the Reading-and-Thinking Brain in an AI World

For a long time, I’ve been quiet on the topic of AI.

Not because it doesn’t matter. Obviously, it does!

But because I needed time to understand the tools… and the trajectory.

One thing is certain: while AI is changing how students access information, it does not change how the brain learns to read, think, focus, reason, and make meaning.

In fact, these skills matter more now, than ever before!

Of course, this has always been the heart of our work.

Whether you know us through study skills, social-emotional learning, or other curriculum resources, our focus has never been just “getting through school.” It has been helping students build the underlying capacities that make learning possible: attention, comprehension, self-monitoring, executive function, confidence, and independent thinking.

In an AI world, these capacities not only become more important, they become MOST important!

New support for parents and families

That’s one reason I’m excited to share something new with you:

We’ve launched a new YouTube channel.

This channel focuses on protecting the reading and learning brain in an AI world. It’s especially for families trying to make sense of reading struggles, mixed messages, and a rapidly changing educational landscape.

It’s also part of a larger shift for me and for SOAR.

Over the years, many parents have joined our list alongside educators and schools. We have always known there was a real need there, but for a long time, I simply did not have the bandwidth to serve families in the way I wanted to. Now that my youngest has graduated from high school, I finally do.

So in this season, we’re expanding our support for parents and students with a new suite of services centered on literacy, while also supporting a broader range of school and learning challenges:

• group coaching for parents navigating academic, behavioral, or learning concerns
• individual consulting for families seeking guidance on school-related challenges
• direct reading support for students

More on that soon.

Start here

For now, I’d love to invite you to the new channel.

If you start with just two videos, start here:

1) My origin story
This is the deeply personal story behind why I began this work with families in the first place, and why this mission matters so much to me.

2) The thesis of the channel
This is the bigger-picture video where I explain my stance on literacy instruction, how the reading brain actually works, and why so many students are misunderstood.
https://youtu.be/FXqZUvNpsrI

(Note: If you’d like to help us get this message in front of more parents, the best thing you can do is watch a good portion of the video, click “like,” and subscribe to the channel. Those early signals help YouTube understand that the content is worth sharing more broadly.)

My hope is that this channel will be a calm, clear, practical resource for both parents and educators, especially in a time when it’s easy to confuse fast answers with deep learning.

AI can be useful.

But it cannot build a student’s brain for them.

That part is still human work.
And it is worth doing well.

Thank you for being here.

To our students’ success,

Susan Kruger Winter
https://www.youtube.com/@SusanKrugerWinter

P.S. If you know a parent or educator who is trying to help a struggling reader and feeling overwhelmed, I’d be honored if you shared the channel with them.