Maryanne Wolf Quotes

We human beings were never born to read; we invented reading and then had to teach it to every new generation. Each new reader comes to reading with a 'fresh' brain - one that is programmed to speak, see, and think, but not to read.

I taught myself to read when I was three by comparing the letters in my Mother Goose book with the rhymes I had memorised.

We all learned how to walk and talk by interacting with our environment, with real goals and rewards.

Learning to speak was the most remarkable thing you ever did.

When you're a child you're able to assimilate so easily into any situation. You even start talking like the people you're around. I wasn't conscious that I was so good at that until I started to truly feel like an actor.

Play reaches the habits most needed for intellectual growth.

A child raised on a desert island, alone, without social interaction, without language, and thus lacking empathy, is still a sentient being.

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

I didn't learn the alphabet until I was 11.

People commonly educate their children as they build their houses, according to some plan they think beautiful, without considering whether it is suited to the purposes for which they are designed.

Some people say video games rot your brain, but I think they work different muscles that maybe you don't normally use.

Learning can take place in the backyard if there is a human being there who cares about the child. Before learning computers, children should learn to read first. They should sit around the dinner table and hear what their parents have to say and think.

My brother and I have always had this theory that, as stupid as it sounds, in video games, there is a certain hand-eye coordination and a thought process that you can learn.

If you just casually look at a baby, it doesn't look like there's very much going on there, but they know more and learn more than we would ever have thought. Every single minute is incredibly full of thought and novelty. It's easy as adults to take for granted everything it took to arrive at the state where we are.

From an evolutionary perspective children are, literally, designed to learn. Childhood is a special period of protected immaturity. It gives the young breathing time to master the things they will need to know in order to survive as adults.

But, if you observe children learning in their first few years of life, you can see that they can and do learn on their own - we leave them alone to crawl, walk, talk, and gain control over their bodies. It happens without much help from parents.

I did not even go to kindergarten; I just started first grade when I was five and started reading right away. I don't know how it all worked, but I had a lot of adults and older siblings around me. So, I guess I was probably introduced to what one would be introduced to at that time in kindergarten.

The clarification of visual forms and their organization in integrated patterns as well as the attribution of such forms to suitable objects is one of the most effective training grounds of the young mind.

We are all born with a unique genetic blueprint, which lays out the basic characteristics of our personality as well as our physical health and appearance... And yet, we all know that life experiences do change us.

The human being acquires a habit of learning. He learns to learn.

I don't think that the basics that kids need have changed in 10,000 years.

Text input is certainly useful, but images and speech are a much more natural way for humans to express their queries. Infants learn to see and speak well before they learn to type. The same is true of human evolution - we've had spoken language for a long time compared to written language, which is a relatively recent development.

After many years of research on how the human brain learns to read, I came to an unsettlingly simple conclusion: We humans were never born to read.

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?

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.