Jim Trelease Quotes

#1. Every time we read to a child, we're sending a 'pleasure' message to the child's brain. You could even call it a commercial, conditioning the child to associate books and print with pleasure.

Jim Trelease

#2. Vocabulary and coherent sentences can't be downloaded onto paper unless they've first been uploaded to the head - by reading.

Jim Trelease

#3. Like Scout and her father in To Kill a Mockingbird, my father would pull me onto his lap each night in our four-room apartment and read aloud.

Jim Trelease

#4. The more you read, the better you get at it; the better you get at it, the more you like it;
and the more you like it, the more you do it.
And the more you read, the more you know;
and the more you know, the smarter you grow.

Jim Trelease

#5. What we teach children to love and desire will always outweigh what we make them learn.

Jim Trelease

#6. The closest thing we have to a "crap detector" is a qualified librarian.

Jim Trelease

#7. Neither books nor people have Velcro Sides
there must be a bonding agent
someone who attaches child to book.

Jim Trelease

#8. Reading aloud is the best advertisement because it works. It allows a child to sample the delights of reading and conditions him to believe that reading is a pleasureful experience, not a painful or boring one.

Jim Trelease

#9. Imagine what our culture would be like if Americans sold ideas, words, and books with the same creativity we use to sell designer jeans, shampoo, and rock stars. Why, we might end up with people whos attention span for the printed word is longer than the time it takes to read a T-shirt.

Jim Trelease

#10. If you don't read much, you really don't know much. You're dangerous.

Jim Trelease

#11. The prime purpose of being four is to enjoy being four - of secondary importance is to prepare for being five.

Jim Trelease

#12. A nation that does not read much does not know much. And a nation that does not know much is more likely to make poor choices in the home, the marketplace, the jury box, and the voting booth. And those decisions ultimately affect the entire nation ... the literate and illiterate.

Jim Trelease

#13. Children's books, even good picture books, are much richer than ordinary home or classroom conversation,

Jim Trelease

#14. Students who read the most also read the best, achieve the most, and stay in school the longest. Conversely, those who dont read much cannot get better at it.

Jim Trelease

#15. Amid the push to excellence, with its measurement and accountability, it is easy to lose sight of a key ingredient in reading a book - the pleasure it bring us, something too many boil down to a dirty word: FUN.

Jim Trelease

#16. Story is the vehicle we use to make sense of our lives in a world that often defies logic.

Jim Trelease

#17. You became a reader because you saw and heard someone you admired enjoying the experience, someone led you to the world of books even before you could read, let you taste the magic of stories, took you to the library, and allowed you to stay up later at night to read in bed.

Jim Trelease

#18. The more you read, the better you get, the more better you get, the more you like it; and the more you like it, the more you do it.

Jim Trelease

#19. Readers don't grow in trees. But they are grown-in places where they are fertilized with lots of print, and above all, read to daily.

Jim Trelease

#20. We have instant pudding, instant photos, instant coffee - but there are no instant adults.

Jim Trelease

#21. The single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children.

Jim Trelease

#22. Skill sheets, workbooks, basal reader, flash cards are not enough. To convey meaning you need someone sharing the meaning and flavor of real stories with the student.

Jim Trelease

#23. So I ask you: whose job is it in this country to wake up comatose parents? Someone better do it soon because knowing television's potential for harm and keeping that knowledge to ourselves instead of sharing it with parents amounts to covering up a land mine on a busy street.

Jim Trelease

#24. Education is not the filling of a bucket but the lighting of a fire.

Jim Trelease

#25. Each day millions of children arrive in American classrooms in search of more than reading and math skills. They are looking for a light in the darkness of their lives, a Good Samaritan who will stop and bandage a bruised heart or ego.

Jim Trelease