Read Seed, Inc. is committed to challenging illiteracy in North Carolina by preparing low-income children to enter school ready to learn, achieve academic success, and love reading for a lifetime. Since 2002, Read Seed has built home libraries for at-risk children by giving them new, age-appropriate books. The Books in a Bag Program partners with NC HUD (Housing & Urban Development) Authorities to identify all residents between ages 0 and 7 years old to give them books several times each year.

Why do we target this population? Because childhood illiteracy leads to adult illiteracy, and they are less likely to succeed if they cannot read. Consider the research:

The single most significant factor influencing a child's early educational success is an introduction to books and being read to at home prior to beginning school. (National Commission on Reading, 1985)

The only behavior measure that correlates significantly with reading scores is the number of books in the home. An analysis of a national data set of nearly 100,000 United States school children found that access to printed materials--and not poverty--is the "critical variable affecting reading acquisition." (Jeff McQuillan, The Literacy Crisis: False Claims, Real Solutions, 1998).