Here is an option:
Project Gutenberg has free books, here is one:
Badge of Infamy, by Lester del Rey
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19471/19471-h/19471-h.htm
But some of these books have been converted into free AUDIO BOOKS by Librivox.
http://librivox.org/badge-of-infamy-by-lester-del-rey/
So a child can follow along in the text while the computer reads the book to her or him. If the parent can get them started then they can begin picking up the words as they go along.
So with a CHEAP computer....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCHHAFyp9I0
More and more articles are appearing of schools supplying the kids with netbooks. Usually these are well healed schools and they are talking about $400 machines at a school with wireless networking and maybe their own IT staff.
It is not how powerful the computer is. It is what you do with it. Let the White kids read Shakespeare on their netbooks. Science fiction on the Sylvania is better. Get reading and science together. Actually those humanities people are down on science anyway. LOL They even select the wrong science fiction.
We depend on the schools too much.
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