Many thanks for your confirmation on the direct SPI connection. I vaguely remember that I did have cross over wiring for SPI wiring, ie, MOSI to MISO, MISO to MOSI, and that makes sense, Input/terminal signal on one side to output terminal/signal other side, and vice versa. So your Arduino confirms that. BUT DO YOU HAVE OTHER SPI DEVICES EXAMPLES?

You said the following: "If I execute the read script, then I also get hung up on the read procedure. The device is waiting to read the chip details, but it doesn't sense the chip." You seem to misunderstand one thing: "reader.Write(...) and reader.Read() is NOT write/read on the chip, BUT write/read to the Blue tag of White card. You must place the blue tag or white RFID card on top or near the chip, which is the reader.