Best 20 quotes of Donalyn Miller on MyQuotes

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.

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

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.

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.

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

I am a reader, a flashlight-under-the-covers, carries-a-book-everywhere-I-go​, don't-look-at-my-Amazon-bill. I choose purses based on whether I can cram a paperback into them, and my books are the first items I pack into a suitcase. I am the person who family and friends call when they need a book recommendation or cannot remember who wrote Heidi. My identity as a person is so entwined with my love of reading and books that I cannot separate the two.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Reading changes your life. Reading unlocks worlds unknown or forgotten, taking travelers around the world and through time. Reading helps you escape the confines of school and pursue your own education. Through characters - the saints and the sinners, real or imagined - reading shows you how to be a better human being.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

This is what I want for my students, to lose and find themselves in books.

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.