David Elkind Quotes

Learning to read is probably the most difficult and revolutionary thing that happens to the human brain and if you don't believe that, watch an illiterate adult try to do it.

Reading makes all other learning possible. We have to get books into our children's hands early and often.

If you want to work on the core problem, it's early school literacy.

The dear good people don't know how long it takes to learn to read. I've been at it eighty years, and can't say yet that I've reached the goal.

Johnny can get down and Johnny can throw up, but Johnny can't read.

I am very much interested in getting parents to read to children, and trying to get people mentoring children. If I can do both I'll be happy.

I didn't read at all until I was 12. I just couldn't. It was too frustrating.

Having a larger vocabulary the day you walk into kindergarten is advantageous.

I've heard from pre-K and kindergarten teachers alike that the Common Core is inappropriately pushing written literacy standards when the focus should be on the development of oral literacy skills. And that's actually delaying the development of literacy.

One way to ensure that all kids will be successful in school and life is by focusing on literacy by the end of the third grade.

I'm literate, and the idea of leaving children illiterate is criminal.

When you read to a child, when you put a book in a child's hands, you are bringing that child news of the infinitely varied nature of life. You are an awakener.

Too many of our children cannot read. Reading is the building block, and it must be the foundation for education reform.

Up until 3rd grade you are learning to read. After 3rd grade, you are reading to learn. if you aren’t … reading proficiently at the end of the 3rd grade, you are going to struggle throughout the rest of your school years.

I know what not being able to read can do to a child's confidence.

In India, not enough importance is given to writing for children. And what could be more important than the enrichment of young minds with great literature?

In the Nineties, there was all this new research into brain development, with evidence saying poor kids fall behind in school because no one is talking to them at home, no one is reading to them. And middle-class parents seized on this research.

Experts in literacy and child development have discovered that if children know eight nursery rhymes by heart by the time they’re four years old, they’re usually among the best readers by the time they’re eight.

If children haven't been read to, they don't love books. They need to love books, for books are the basis of literature, composition, history, world events, vocabulary, and everything else.

I do think, where would kids be if it weren't for you and for the good pediatricians, and for the good parents? I passionately believe in sitting a child on your lap and tracing the lines of the book with your finger, and they can read before they know they can, if you bother enough. I did it with my kids, and they're doing it with their kids now.

President Bush said that our kids must be taught how to read. He said if his aides never learned to read, they'd never be able to tell him what's in the newspapers every day.

When she was pregnant with Teddy, she feared that she’d give birth to a child who disliked reading. It would be like giving birth to a foreign species.

I was born in North London in 1947. I didn't learn to read until I was almost 8-partly bad schooling, and partly I suspect slight dyslexic problems. My father, driven mad by this, taught me to read. At 9 I began writing.

You don't have to care about children to care about children. One of the things that I talk a lot about is the fact of the importance of third-grade reading level. By the end of third grade, if the child is not at reading level, it'll drop off. They never catch up.

Reading well makes children more interesting both to themselves and others, a process in which they will develop a sense of being separate and distinct selves.