Mem Fox Quotes

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.

I am very much interested in getting parents to read to children, and trying to get people mentoring children. If I can do both I'll be happy.

The simplest way to make sure that we raise literate children is to teach them to read, and to show them that reading is a pleasurable activity.

The dear good people don't know how long it takes to learn to read. I've been at it eighty years, and can't say yet that I've reached the goal.

I read to my children, and now they love to read. I encourage parents to carve out just 20 minutes a day. It helps you learn more about them, and really opens the door for you to speak into their life!

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.

There have been two areas identified as being vital to reading - and that's for very young children between the ages of one month and five years and for teenagers. I've been trying to find ways of approaching both groups.

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.

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.

The fire of literacy is created by the emotional sparks between a child, a book, and the person reading. It isn’t achieved by the book alone, nor by the child alone, nor by the adult who’s reading aloud—it’s the relationship winding between all three, bringing them together in easy harmony.

The home is the child's first school, the parent is the child's first teacher, and reading is the child's first subject.

What blockheads are those wise persons, who think it necessary that a child should comprehend everything it reads.

Reading might not be the way that the child engages with the world, but it should be something that they all learn how to do, and that they get to have for themselves, as opposed to somebody telling them what to do and how to do it.

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.

Teaching children to read was one thing; keeping them interested in reading was something else.

Too many of our children cannot read. Reading is the building block, and it must be the foundation for education reform.

Learning to read is probably the most difficult and revolutionary thing that happens to the human brain and if you don't believe that, watch an illiterate adult try to do it.

Each young reader has to fashion an entirely new 'reading circuit' afresh every time. There is no one neat circuit just waiting to unfold. This means that the circuit can become more or less developed depending on the particulars of the learner: e.g., instruction, culture, motivation, educational opportunity.

I am glad to say that I used to read a lot right from a young age.

Every opportunity to practice is a gift to the developing reader. Practice, practice, practice, in every form and medium!

I like to read and understand.

I was reading at a third-grade level until the age of 30 before I made the decision that I was going to learn how to read.

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.

Some people there are who, being grown; forget the horrible task of learning to read. It is perhaps the greatest single effort that the human undertakes, and he must do it as a child.

I do think, where would kids be if it weren't for you and for the good pediatricians, and for the good parents? I passionately believe in sitting a child on your lap and tracing the lines of the book with your finger, and they can read before they know they can, if you bother enough. I did it with my kids, and they're doing it with their kids now.