Donalyn Miller Quotes & Sayings

Reading shows us how to be better human beings, not just successful worker bees. — Donalyn Miller

By middle school, students have an image of themselves as readers or nonreaders. Students who do not read see reading as a talent that they do not have rather than as an attainable skill. — Donalyn Miller

I try to teach my students that books are a mirror, reflecting their own lives, and a window, giving them a peek into someone else's. — Donalyn Miller

Without spending increasingly longer periods of time reading, they won't build endurance as readers, either. Students need time to read and time to be readers. — Donalyn Miller

Books are love letters (or apologies) passed between us, adding a layer of conversation beyond our spoken words. — Donalyn Miller

By believing that only some of our students will ever develop a love of books and reading, we ignore those who do not fall into books and reading on their own. We renege on our responsibility to teach students how to become self-actualized readers. We are selling our students short by believing that reading is a talent and that lifelong reading behaviors cannot be taught. — Donalyn Miller

Are the activities and assessments we use accomplishing our intended instructional goals, or are they simply what we have always done? — Donalyn Miller

Providing students with the opportunity to choose their own books to read empowers and encourages them. It strengthens their self-confidence, rewards their interests, and promotes a positive attitude toward reading by valuing the reader and giving him or her a level of control. Readers without power — Donalyn Miller

When my principal interviews candidates for a teaching position at my school, regardless of whether it's a language arts position, he always asks them to discuss the last book they read. — Donalyn Miller

For me, this is what wild reading is: readers who incorporate reading into their personal identities to the degree that it weaves into their lives along with everything else that interests them. As teachers and parents, we spend a lot of time gnashing our teeth and complaining that kids don't read. Reading is a big deal to us because we know that reading well unlocks academic, professional, and social opportunities, but for readers themselves, reading is just part of who they are. — Donalyn Miller

Exposing students to lots of books and positive reading experiences while building a network of other readers who support each other provides students with tools that last beyond the classroom setting. — Donalyn Miller

A classroom atmosphere that promotes reading does not come from the furniture and its placement as much as it comes from the teacher's expectation that students will read. — Donalyn Miller

Instead of standing on a stage each day, dispensing knowledge to my young charges, I should guide them as they approach their own understandings. — Donalyn Miller

Readers are made, not born. Few students spring out of the ground fully formed as readers. They need help, and we cannot assume that they will get it from home, but they should always get it from us, their teachers. — Donalyn Miller

If we really want our students to become wild readers, independent of our support and oversight, sometimes the best thing we can do is get out of the way. — Donalyn Miller

When we meet and I discover that we have read and loved the same books, we are instant friends. — Donalyn Miller

Our children shouldn't have to wait for adulthood to become wild readers. For many, it will be too late. — Donalyn Miller

Failure is not an option, so why talk about it? — Donalyn Miller

I believe that this corporate machinery of scripted programs, comprehension worksheets (reproducibles, handouts, printables, whatever you want to call them), computer-based incentive packages, and test practice curriculum facilitates a solid bottom-line for the companies that sell them, and give schools proof they can point to that they are using every available resource to teach reading, but these efforts are doomed to fail a large number of students because they leave out the most important factor. When you take a forklift and shovel off the programs, underneath it all is a child reading a book. — Donalyn Miller

We reduce the effectiveness of reading interventions when we don't provide our lowest-performing students reading time and encouragement. Developing readers need more reading, not less. — Donalyn Miller

The purpose of school should not be to prepare students for more school. We should be seeking to have fully engaged students now. — Donalyn Miller

Students need to make their own choices about reading material and writing topics. — Donalyn Miller

I never tell students they cannot read a book they pick up, but I do guide them toward books that I think would be a good fit for them. I think of myself as a reading mentor-a reader who can help them find books they might like. — Donalyn Miller

Every book begins and ends with other people- the readers who suggest the book to us and encourage us to read it, the talented author who crafted each word, the fascinating individuals we meet inside the pages- and the readers we discuss and share the book with when we finish. — Donalyn Miller

If you don't read, I don't know how to communicate with you ... I can never express who I am in my own words as powerfully as my books can. — Donalyn Miller

As Stephen Krashen and Joanne Ujiie (2005) assert, "Many people are fearful that if children engage in 'light reading,' if they read comics and magazines they will stay with this kind of reading forever, that they will never go on to more 'serious' reading. The opposite appears to be the case. The evidence suggests that light reading provides the competence and motivation to continue reading and to read more demanding texts" (p. 6). — Donalyn Miller

I need to put forward more encouraging terms for my students than the negative popular terminology struggling and reluctant. Where is the hope in these terms? I prefer to use positive language to identify the readers in my classes. Peeking into my classroom, I see sixty different readers with individual reading preferences and abilities, but I consistently recognize three trends: developing readers, dormant readers, and underground readers. — Donalyn Miller

This is how I show my students that I love them - by putting books in their hands, by noticing what they are about, and finding books that tell them, I know. I know. I know how it is. I know who you are, and even though we may never speak of it, read this book, and know that I understand you. — Donalyn Miller

Why aren't adults, even teachers, reading, and what is this doing to our students? — Donalyn Miller

The most effective reading teachers are teachers who read. According to Morrison, Jacobs, and Swinyard (1999), "Perhaps the most influential teacher behavior to influence students' literacy development is personal reading, both in and out of school" (p. 81). — Donalyn Miller

If we value all readers, we must value all reading. — Donalyn Miller

Although I enjoy digging through the library to help students find books, my aim is to help them develop self-confidence in choosing books for themselves. — Donalyn Miller

The uninitiated might say that I am lost in my books, but I know I am more found than lost. — Donalyn Miller

I don't believe some teachers consider whether their classroom instruction fosters the development of reading habits in their students. Reflecting on the landslide of crossword puzzles, dioramas, annotations, and reading logs assigned to their students for every book they read, teachers might realize that instead of encouraging students to read, these mindless assignments make kids hate reading. Primarily assigned to generate grades and give teachers a false sense that they are holding students accountable for reading, these counterfeit activities - that no wild reader completes on his or her own - guarantee that their students will avoid reading. If we care about our students' reading lives, we must foster their lifelong reading habits and eliminate or reduce the negative influences of classroom practices that don't align with what wild readers do. — Donalyn Miller

Students will read if we give them the books, the time, and the enthusiastic encouragement to do so. If we make them wait for the one unit a year in which they are allowed to choose their own books and become readers, they may never read at all. To keep our students reading, we have to let them. — Donalyn Miller

I think that dormant readers might become engaged readers if someone showed them that reading was engaging. — Donalyn Miller

No matter the intervention, developing readers must spend substantial instructional time actually reading if they are to attain reading competence. — Donalyn Miller

If you ever think you have all the answers, it's time to retire. — Donalyn Miller

I realized that every lesson, conference, response, and assignment I taught must lead students away from me and toward their autonomy as literate people. — Donalyn Miller

Failing to graduate a populace that values reading has long-term consequences for everyone. — Donalyn Miller

Readers enjoy talking about books almost as much as they like reading. — Donalyn Miller

We have created a culture of reading poverty in which a vicious cycle of aliteracy has the potential to devolve into illiteracy for many students. By allowing students to pass through our classrooms without learning to love reading, we are creating adults (who then become parents and teachers) who don't read much. They may be capable of reading well enough to perform academic and informational reading, but they do not love to read and have few life reading habits to model for children. — Donalyn Miller

The Sixth Grade Nickname Game, by Gordon Korman, — Donalyn Miller

Students will rise to the level of a teacher's expectations. — Donalyn Miller