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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.