Front-crawling through the water during her swim lesson at Roberto Clemente State Park in the Bronx one recent Tuesday morning, Kiara García, now 8, hardly seemed to think she was doing anything unusual.

And she wasn’t, at least not anymore. While seven years ago 69 percent of black children and 58 percent of Latino children reported having little to no swimming ability, compared to 42 percent of white children, today that gap — while still significant — is shrinking, according to research commissioned by the USA Swimming Foundation.

More minority and low-income children are finding their way into the water. And in New York City, they are helped in part by a growing array of free lessons, such as those at Roberto Clemente.

As summer winds to an end, those lessons have done more than just teach children how to propel a kickboard or dive for submerged goggles. They may also have helped reduce historical disparities in swimming ability: Another USA Swimming Foundation study, which will be published this fall, found improvement in swimming ability across all racial groups compared with 2010, with the number of black children who had little to no swimming ability falling to 64 percent. The change in swimming ability among Latino children was more dramatic, falling to 45 percent. The number of white children with little to no swimming ability fell to 40 percent.

Read the source article at The New York Times