MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. — The National Campaign for Grade Level Reading awarded the “National Pacesetter Award” to Gov. Nathan Deal and first lady Sandra Deal during the Governor’s Summit on Early Language and Literacy Thursday morning in Milledgeville. 

The campaign also recognized the first lady as a “National Grade Level Reading Champion” for her efforts in encouraging grade-level literacy in Georgia schools. 

The summit, hosted by the Sandra Dunagan Deal Center for Early Language and Literacy at Georgia College, welcomed the governor and first lady to Magnolia Ballroom on the campus of Georgia College as part of a two-day event bringing together educational leaders, community teams and policymakers to discuss early language and literacy change across the state. 

The first lady, the namesake of the Center for Early Language and Literacy, and Gov. Deal each offered their thoughts on the importance of early literacy throughout the state. 

“All of these analyses, if you read the fine print, will tell you that for sustained economic growth and job growth it depends on an educated and qualified workforce. We’ve spent a lot of effort and attention to making sure that the skill levels of our potential employees are up to date,” Governor Deal said. “Many people overlook the simple fact that if you cannot read you are a prisoner in this world. Understand that what you’re doing in literacy is the foundation stone on what all other education has to be built. It’s like building a house on the rocks compared to building a house on sand. If the house is not built on a foundation of literacy then it cannot stand.”

Much of the effort toward greater reading ability among the state’s youngest learners has been led by Sandra Deal. Deal, a former teacher and the daughter of two teachers, has traveled to every county in the state and visited more than 500 schools to discuss the importance of reading with Georgia’s students. The Georgia College alumna said her literacy campaign began as soon as she became the state’s first lady. “When I became first lady and they said, ‘What do you want to do?’ I said, ‘I don’t know but I’m not going to sit here and drink tea and read magazines that’s for sure. I’ll let someone else plan the parties. I’m going to go read to children.’ 

“I started that because I wanted them to enjoy reading and feel empowered in a sense. I knew that if they didn’t want to learn to read, they wouldn’t. They would close their minds. I would talk to them about what they wanted to be when they grew up and how important reading was to their future,” she said. 

Sandra Deal’s work helped result in the creation of the Center for Early Language and Literacy a year ago today. The center provides “research-based professional development for organizations working with children from birth to age 8.” 

The first lady applauded the center’s work but also took the time to encourage teachers and parents to take an active interest in their children’s reading ability.

“I’m so thankful that we have a facility that’s training our teachers and trying to help our teachers find ways to discover what’s blocking the child from learning to read. Just calling the words is not the answer, they have to understand what the words mean. There has to be discussion, she said. “We have to encourage our young people to be teachers, and we have to encourage our parents to read to their students.”