I realized with grief that purposeless activities in language arts are probably the burial grounds of language development and that coffins can be found in most classrooms, including mine.

The fire of literacy is created by the emotional sparks between a child, a book, and the person reading.

My mother was a very difficult woman to please. She was the sort of woman who thought that if I were praised I would get above myself.

When I say to a parent, "read to a child", I don't want it to sound like medicine. I want it to sound like chocolate.

You're not lonely when you're teaching, you're not quiet, you're laughing most of the time, you're having a wonderful time interacting with young people. It's the best fun in the world.

Babies have much higher levels of stress in childcare.

I don't know why some people have children at all if they know that they can only take a few weeks off work.