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What I want is to try and get across the idea that reading for pleasure is so beneficial. And turn children on who have maybe been switched off reading or never found a love of it in the first place.

Students read for tests and because their parents ask them to, but I think it's very important to tell children that you can read for fun, too, and to understand human spirit. It builds empathy.

It is my desire to break the destructive generational cycle of illiteracy in the home by focusing on the children. Reading to your child has so much value as a parent because it opens the lines of communication.

One of the problems you have when you read with kids is that once they like something they want you to read it a hundred times.

Reading should not be presented to children as a chore, a duty. It should be offered as a gift.

I'm a big reader. My kids love reading, and I think it's important, not just for development but for bonding. You start reading to kids before they can even understand what you're saying to them, so I look at it as a fundamental tool for connection.

Kids and adults have a difference of opinion when it comes to what constitutes legitimate reading. Adults often push books that they loved as children, which, ironically, were often books that their parents weren't particularly keen on.

I think sometimes parents and teachers can push children away from reading by telling them it's something they must do, the same way they must eat their greens and must pass their exams in school. Poppycock! Read or don't read - that's your call.

Children have to be motivated to want to learn to read. Reading must not be taught simply as a school exercise.