Basic Literacy Quotes

I'm literate, and the idea of leaving children illiterate is criminal.

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.

It's pretty much how we get anything added to the curriculum. When parents said children needed to be computer literate, the schools started responding. The same thing is true of basic financial literacy.

The policy of letting the child 'do what he likes' is an insidious one, since the children are encouraged to continue always at their original superficial level, without receiving guidance in study. Furthermore, the 'three Rs,' the fundamental tools, are neglected as long as possible, with the result that the child's chance to develop his mind is greatly retarded. The policy of teaching words via pictures instead of by the alphabet tends to deprive the young child of the greatest reasoning tool of all.

The commitment to literacy was constant on the part of African Americans. And the percentages of literacy by the end of the century, by 1900, basic literacy has galloped ahead. People believed that education, of course, was the turnstile for advancement.

My father must have had some elementary education for he could read and write and keep accounts inaccurately

American business long ago gave up on demanding that prospective employees be honest and hardworking. It has even stopped hoping for employees who are educated enough that they can tell the difference between the men's room and the women's room without having little pictures on the doors.

See that your children are properly educated in the rudiments of their mother tongue, and then let them proceed to higher branches of learning.

Give the villagers village arithmetic, village geography, village history and the literary knowledge that they must use daily, i.e. reading and writing letters, etc.

You're not going to get to college - you're not even going to be qualified, even to go to a community college, if you don't address the basic problem of literacy in America. And there's no reason - no reason - for us to have that problem.

Much like the opportunities that factory work provided for working-class Americans in the last century, microwork will provide opportunities for marginalized people in this one. All they really need is basic literacy, a cheap computer, and an internet hookup.

My mom and dad taught me nothing but ABCs.