Quotes About Literacy

My parents didn't have much money growing up, but they always had a budget for books.

When you break finances down in a way that kids can understand, it creates financial literacy that grows with them as they become adults.

I don't even want to guess at what computer literacy might do to children, except to say that if cyberspace is considered a place, then there are people who are already in it and people who are not in it.

I want a part where I can use my own hair, my own voice, and maybe even be literate.

My father was weaned on books. I'm halfway between being weaned on books and weaned on television. And if you're weaned on television, you're not as good a writer as if you were weaned on books.

In TIME June 7, 2010 On the sustainability of the publishing industry, in the Chicago Tribune: I think that book publishing is about to slide into the sea. We live in a literate time, and our children are writing up a storm, often combining letters and numbers.... The future of publishing: 18 million authors in America, each with an average of 14 readers, eight of whom are blood relatives. Average annual earnings: $175. - 5/26/10

OKAY. So I was going to the library every Saturday. So what? So what? It's not like I was reading books or anything.

The most, MOST important thing is to read. Read all the time; read when they tell you not to read, what they tell you not to read, read with a flashlight under the covers, read on the bus, standing on a corner, waiting for a friend, in the dentist's waiting room. Read every minute you can. READ LIKE A WOLF EATS. Read. 

For sondry scoles maken sotile clerkis; Womman of manye scoles half a clerk is.

The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it. They cannot spell it because they have nothing to spell it with but an old foreign alphabet of which only the consonants – and not all of them – have any agreed speech value. Consequently no man can teach himself what it should sound like from reading it; and it is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman despise him.

Maggie Tulliver, you perceive, was by no means that well trained, well-informed young person that a small female of eight or nine necessarily is in these days; she had only been to school a year at St. Ogg's, and had so few books that she sometimes read the dictionary; so that in travelling over her small mind you would have found the most unexpected ignorance as well as unexpected knowledge.

The first pages of any book I remember reading, in Pinner Wood primary school, were from The Beacon Readers: stories of Farmer Giles, Rover the Dog, Old Lob the shepherd and Mrs Cuddy the Cow. I was very fond of Mrs Cuddy.

If we were meant to read for enjoyment, would God have created television? Read as it was intended - for exercise. The more you read, the more you expand your - what's the word I'm looking for? - your stockpile of words. You must have a stockpile of words that you can pass along to your children for their stockpile.

Illiteracy causes violence. If you don't have enough words in your vocabulary, you can't even seek your way out of a situation.

My son likes Doctor Seuss books, but they're right tongue twisters. You get to certain bits and you stumble your words and it makes you feel like an idiot.

I think to really be literate in nu shu you only need about 600 characters because it is phonetic. So you're able to then create many words out of one character.

For thousands and thousands of American kids, libraries are the only safe place they can find to study, a haven free from the dangers of street or the numbing temptations of television. As schools cut back services, the library looms even more important to countless children.

People who don't read books a lot are threatened by books.

I speak three other languages - Serbian, French, and Italian - but typically read in English.

I had the fortune or misfortune to learn how to read fluently starting at the age of three. So I had read maybe 150 books by the time I hit 1st grade. And I already knew that the teachers were lying to me.

I was thrilled to be able to read at three. I just thought everyone loved reading as much as I did.

I get letters from readers who say that they have always hated reading, but somebody suggested one of my books, they actually finished the book and enjoyed it, and they're going on to read another book. I'm thrilled that they have figured out that reading is fun.

The way we've been neglecting to support our libraries throughout the country is a shame.

I always loved strange stories like the Dr. Seuss stuff. 'Go, Dog. Go!' was one of my favorite stories - it still is. It's just such a bizarre yet true book. And I did well reading and writing as a kid throughout school. I think early on that's what made me realize what an advantage that is.