Literacy Development Quotes

As work in neurosciences indicates, the acquisition of literacy necessitated a new circuit in our species' brain more than 6,000 years ago. That circuit evolved from a very simple mechanism for decoding basic information, like the number of goats in one's herd, to the present, highly elaborated reading brain.

When I was in the first grade I was afraid of the teacher and had a miserable time in the reading circle, a difficulty that was overcome by the loving patience of my second grade teacher. Even though I could read, I refused to do so.

I have kept a reading diary since I was 18. I am jealous of my friend who has kept hers since she was ten.

I want children to learn to develop deep reading skills in the beginning in print. I believe the physicality of print is much better in the beginning for children, and then help them learn how to use their deep reading skills on digital medium.

Language instruction should start in the first grade. Writing, also.

Babies are born with the instinct to speak, the way spiders are born with the instinct to spin webs. You don't need to train babies to speak; they just do. But reading is different.

Research shows us that children who are read to from a very early age are more likely to begin reading themselves at an early age. They're more likely to excell in school. They're more likely to graduate secondary school and go to college.

Building a habit of reading leads to all sorts of reading.

Grades were important in our house. I was reading by two. My mom would sit there and read with me, read with me, read with me. It was wonderful.

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.

I have a passion for teaching kids to become readers, to become comfortable with a book, not daunted. Books shouldn't be daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wonderful; and learning to be a reader gives a terrific advantage.

My parents were keen for me to have the education they themselves never had. They weren't able to guide me towards particular books, but they encouraged me to read, which I did, randomly and compulsively.

I was a terrible reader as a kid. I mean terrible. Super slow and very unfocused. It took me forever to read a book, and I remember being well into high school and still needing my mom to sit down and read aloud to me so I could pass my English tests and such.

Reading becomes the fuel for development.

Elimination of illiteracy is as serious an issue to our history as the abolition of slavery.

There's nothing like a shovel full of dirt to encourage literacy.

I think any comic book - or really, any book that you can read - in a sense is an educational tool in that it helps literacy. The more you read, the better you get at it. It almost doesn't matter what you read, the important thing is for young people to become readers.

The fastest way to teach a child to read is to teach them to write.

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.

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

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.

[Kid] never learned to read in kindergarten, first, and second, so in third grade he begins to be placed in the EMH or the learning-disabled rooms.

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.

If learning to read was as easy as learning to talk, as some writers claim, many more children would learn to read on their own. The fact that they do not, despite their being surrounded by print, suggests that learning to read is not a spontaneous or simple skill.

One of the things that amazes me is the amount of functional illiteracy in this country... people can't read to get around, or people who can't read the newspaper but can barely read street signs.