Every Child Should Own Books

Read Seed, Inc is committed to challenging illiteracy in North Carolina by preparing low-income children to enter school ready to learn, achieve academically, 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 in order to provide them with books several times each year. Why do we target this population? Because childhood illiteracy leads to adult illiteracy; children cannot succeed if they cannot read. Academic research continues to show that the single most important factor in determining whether a child will fail or succeed academically is having access to books in their home. Consider the following: "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.