Quotes About Literacy

Richard Hoggart's cultural analysis 'The Uses of Literacy' was published in 1957, but its influence still hovers over anyone setting out to write seriously about people's affection for things that aren't serious, such as the products of pop culture.

In fourth grade, I learned that reading was serious business, not just a pleasant way to pass the time, and that like medicine or engineering, it had a definite, valuable purpose: to foster 'comprehension.'

Osaan jo itse lukea / siis kirjoja on oltava. - Myssy-Kasperi matkustaa (Kasper Mütze darf verreisen)

literacy made the Spaniards heirs to a huge body of knowledge about human behavior and history. By contrast, not only did Atahuallpa have no conception of the Spaniards themselves, and no personal experience of any other invaders from overseas, but he also had not even heard (or read) of similar threats to anyone else, anywhere else, anytime previously in history. That gulf of experience encouraged Pizarro to set his trap and Atahuallpa to walk into it. THUS

literacy made the Spaniards heirs to a huge body of knowledge about human behavior and history.

For instance, today almost all Japanese and Scandinavians are literate but most Iraqis are not: why did writing nevertheless arise nearly four thousand years earlier in Iraq?

In the Koran, the first thing God said to Muhammed was 'Read.

When I thus get rid of children's lessons, I get rid of the chief cause of their sorrows, namely their books. Reading is the curse of childhood, yet it is almost the only occupation you can find for children. Emile, at twelve years old, will hardly know what a book is. But, you say, he must, at least, know how to read.

I would rather he never learnt to read at all, than that this art should be acquired at the price of all that makes reading useful. What is the use of reading to him if he always hates it?

I was the kind of kid whose parents would drop him off at the local town library on their way to work, and I'd go and work my way through the children's area.

My work to promote education and literacy in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan has become my life's mission. This takes a full-time commitment 365 24/7.

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.

My dad taught me to read by reading comic strips in the Saturday paper and Archie comics.

The center line of science literacy - which not many people tell you, but I feel this strongly, and I will go to my grave making this point - is how you think.

I really struggled, growing up, with reading and writing. I had a hard time to do that, but I was really passionate about storytelling and about books.

At school I was really heavily dyslexic, so I really struggled academically with reading and writing.

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

I'm just encouraging students to read. It's something you can do daily. It's something you can do whether you're sitting at home reading a newspaper or ordering something online. It's endless.

So many organizations have a mentoring arm, but they don't really do it. Their idea of mentoring a kid is giving them general advice. But what they need to do is read with children.

When I went to school, I was already reading and writing. In fact, I was offended that the other kids couldn't.

We spend all our time teaching reading and writing. We spend absolutely no time at all, in most schools, teaching either speaking or, more importantly still, listening.

The growth of literacy was sparking an awakening – welcome to some, dreadful to others – across the slave-empire of Jamaica. Reading seemed to ignite a hidden store of fuel within an enslaved person.

Reading is important because, if you can read, you can learn anything about everything and everything about anything.

Those who don't read should not lead.