Hugh Mackay Quotes

No skill shapes a child's future success in school or in life more than the ability to read.

We know that reading to children is a crucial step. From the beginning, babies who are read to are exposed to the cadence of language, and school-age children who read at home for 15 minutes a day are exposed to millions of words.

Something like reading depends a lot on just having people around you who talk to you and read you books, more than sitting down and, say, doing a reading drill when you're 3 or 4 years old.

Childhood reading is so important.

I think it's extremely important that children are exposed to reading.

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.

If you read in front of your kids, it's very likely that they'll become readers, too.

I started reading when I was about three, a little over three.

My grandmother taught me how to read, very early, but she taught me to read just the way she taught herself how to read - she read words rather than syllables. And as a result of that, when I entered school, it took me a long time to learn how to write.

The elementary school must assume as its sublime and most solemn responsibility the task of teaching every child in it to read. Any school that does not accomplish this has failed.

We need to tell kids flat out: reading is not optional.

I'm a great believer that the most important years are the sort of early years but the preschool years and then into the first and second grades. If you get a good base in the first and second grade and you can read, you can do anything.

Well, I can't remember not being able to read. I was told I could read by myself very well at the age of three.

Children have to be motivated to want to learn to read. Reading must not be taught simply as a school exercise.

I learned to read at two. I was in a Montessori school and they teach you to read really, really young.

Let's put in place programs to ensure that all of our children are reading by third grade.

Children who are read to learn two things: First, that reading is worthwhile, and second, that they are worthwhile.

Every child should be given a strong start to their education.

Anything that gets children reading is fine.

If children are reading well by the 3rd or 4th grade then everything else works.

I hope to instill, in every child I meet, my love and enthusiasm for reading and stories.

Parents should be encouraged to read to their children, and teachers should be equipped with all available techniques for teaching literacy, so the varying needs and capacities of individual kids can be taken into account.

It is my desire to break the destructive generational cycle of illiteracy in the home by focusing on the children. Reading to your child has so much value as a parent because it opens the lines of communication.

When it comes down to helping kids, a lot of ways for education to move forward is through music because that's exciting to kids. Reading books and going to a bookstore is not that exciting.

The most influential of all educational factors is the conversation in a child's home.