Chapter 1: Bradford Holt and how Money Matters in Learning to Read

When Bradford was in my first-grade class, his mother, Ms. Holt maintained that being poor did not affect his learning to read: “The [wealthier] kids have these Nintendo games, these kids have all the best of everything. They don’t have time to do nothing but play. But a child that has nothing will pick up a book just as entertainment, see?”

At an interview later that year, she added: “[Being] poor has nothing to do with learning how to read or whatever. I’m poor, I’m just trying to make him [Bradford] to read. My mother always said she was poor; she used to be on us for us to read.”