Carol Baldwin's Blog: International Reading Association

Showing posts with label International Reading Association. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Reading & Writing Celebrations that You Don't Want to Miss

Mark your calendars for the following events. This list was culled from the August/September issue of Reading Today, an International Reading Association publication.

National Book Festival- September 25
If you live in the Washington, DC area, this year's festival will be an explosion of authors and books. Visit the website to see the large array of activities planned for the day.

Read for the Record - October 7. This year students from around the world will read The Snowy Day as they raise awareness of the importance of early literacy. Last year over two million readers read The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Help break the record!

Teen Read Week- October 17-23
This annual celebration sponsored by the Young Adult Library Services Association, targets teens, their parents, librarians, educators, booksellers, and other interested adults. The goal is to encourage youth to read for pleasure and to visit their libraries.

National Day on Writing- October 20
For the second year, the National Council of Teachers of English are encouraging writers of all ages to submit stories, poems, recipes, emails, videos, and artwork to this online gallery.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

The" No-Excuse-for-Not-Reading-During-the-Summer" List

If your child moans and groans about reading over the summer, here are some suggestions to counter all complaints. Brought to you by the International Reading Association and Reading Today, this is a smörgåsbord of suggestions to encourage good reading habits over the summer.

Francie Alexander, chief academic officer for Scholastic, Inc., advices parents that:

1. Families should set aside a regular time of day when everyone reads. (Model it!)

2. Hook your kids on a series. If they like the first book, they will like more.
3. Let your children choose their books.

Linda Gambrell, a past president of the IRA, recommends:

1. Schedule weekly trips to the library.
2. Let your child select books you will read aloud.
3. Let your child read in bed. Extend bedtime only for reading.
4. Buy an inexpensive camera and notebook and let your child create a picture journal of his or her summer. Read it with her!

Here are some great web resources which promote summer reading and writing:

1. You'll find activities, projects, games, tools, tips and how-to's for kids from kindergarten through twelfth grade on the IRA and National Council of Teachers Of English ReadWriteThink website.
2. Reading Rockets offers booklists and online activities for parents and teachers.
3. Scholastic Inc has a Summer Challenge which encourages kids to log their summer reading. Last year 63,000 kids logged 35 million minutes!
4. The National Summer Learning Association provides resources for learning in all forms, including reading.

If you like booklists, here are places you can find them:

1. Children's Choices are books which children have evaluated and reviewed.
2. Students can travel across a map of the U.S. by reading a book that takes place in each of the states. Find the fiction and nonfiction lists here.
3. Looking for the 2010 Notable books? You'll find them on a list compiled by the Association for Library Service to Children.
4. The National Endowment for the Humanities has a list of classic literature for kindergarten through 12th graders.

Enough? Now, grab your child, a book, and get reading!

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Why Boys Lag Girls in Reading

From IRA: Reading Radio
Listen and Learn
Why do boys lag girls in reading and what can we do about it? Listen as literacy expert William G. Brozo discusses the overwhelming evidence of a gender gap between boys and girls in reading that is an accelerating international phenomenon. Brozo explores how current notions of masculinity may be contributing factors and shares field-tested strategies for closing the gap.

Brozo is Professor of Literacy in the Graduate School of Education at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, and is author of To Be a Boy, To Be a Reader: Engaging Teen and Preteen Boys in Active Literacy (International Reading Association).

Get the Word Out
IRA Reading Radio segments are meant to be shared! We encourage you to share this important information with your school community, professional circles, and social networks. Act today to get the word out!

Forward this blog to your professional colleagues and ask them to listen to the program and forward it to a friend
Post the program link on your Facebook, Twitter, or any social media site
Share the program with staff, teachers, and parents in your school and district.

About IRA Reading Radio
IRA Reading Radio airs monthly on the BAM! Radio Network, a radio website for the education community. In each installment, IRA Executive Director William Harvey interviews an expert on a key topic relating to reading education.

Technorati Tags:
Boys as Readers, William G. Brozo, Reading Radio, International Reading Association,
Add to: | Technorati | Digg | del.icio.us | Yahoo | BlinkList | Spurl | reddit | Furl |

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Reading a Museum

For those of you who are planning an end-of-the-year class trip to a museum, I’d like to share some insights from an article in a recent International Reading Association journal.

“Museum Literacies and Adolescents Using Multiple Forms of Texts ‘On their Own,’“ (Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 53 (3), 204-14. doi:10.1598/JAAL.53.3.2) evaluated the way in which eight teenagers interacted with exhibits in the Bedford Museum, a collection of archeological artifacts from the Americas, Greece, and Africa. Although none of the teens spent time reading the printed texts accompanying the displays, each of the participants made several “text to self” and “text to text” connections based upon the exhibits.

After analyzing the students’ responses, the author, A. Jonathan Eakle, concluded that “what was seen in the museum took precedence over what was written.” Although some might disparage how the teenagers ignored the printed museum texts, Eakle argued otherwise:

“…the greatest value of the museum experience may well be how visitors, such as the adolescents in the present study, use museums freely, that is, on their own and for their own purposes. And to be free was an attractive part of adolescent museum excursions as shown through the investigation, whether it was, for example, escape through fantasy play, as was the case with Frank and Tom [two teens] darting among museum labyrinths, or by turning a corner to go beyond adult purview, as did Flo aka Mic and Bishop [three other teens] to discuss an interesting object in their own terms. These movements through, and readings of, space are an important aspect of museum literacies and suggest degrees of freedom perhaps not available in many education settings. In times when liberties and choices are often considered precious and rare commodities in education, as well as in wider communities, museums may offer important possibilities for engaging in most valuable aspects of literacies.

Furthermore, Eakle recommends that teachers conceptualize museums as text, thinking about the exhibits as if they were chapters of a book. In this way, activities like treasure hunts are in fact search-and-find activities familiar to literacy educators (p. 213).

Eakle ended the article with questions which can guide museum learning.

· Who is represented in the exhibition?

· Who do we not hear from through the exhibition?

· What language does the museum curator use to create a visual image?

· What images, other objects, and spaces does the curator use to craft a language?

· If we were to take away the printed text labels, do our notions of the museum object or exhibition change?

· Whose interests are served by the museum text? Whose interests are not served?

· What view of the world is put forth by ideas in the museum texts? What views are not?

· What are other possible worldviews seen through the museum texts?

Note. Questions are adapted from Franzak, J., & Noll, E. (2006). Monstrous acts: Problematizing violence in young adult literature.Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 49(8), 662–672. doi:10.1598/JAAL.49.8.3

Technorati Tags:

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

A Writing Lesson Plan for November 14

I'm giving all of the teachers out there a present for this Friday. Since Saturday November 15 is "I Love to Write Day," take a minute and click on the link on the first paragraph on that site. If you don't find a novel writing idea that will fit your classroom, why don't you look at MIGUEL ANGEL ARENAS HARO's website. At the IRA's 22^nd World Congress on reading in Costa Rica he placed a large white strip of paper on the floor and let it snake throughout the conference hall. He then invited participants to write poems on it. "The Giant Poem is very classical," he was quoted saying in the Oct/Nov issue of Reading Today. "It puts the paper close to people and gives them a chance to read their own words."

Why not try creating a giant poem that meanders down the hall of your school? Or how about one that goes around the perimeter of your school cafeteria or up and down the bleachers of the gym?

As for me, I think I'll celebrate by trying to add another 2000 words to my novel. It is now at 14,317 words and has a new working title: Half the Truth.

Monday, April 7, 2008

Is the cup half-empty or half-full?

On April 4th The Charlotte Observer ran an article with the headline, "Students score well in writing" reporting better than average scores for local eighth graders on the 2007 national writing test. When you look closely, the statistics aren't as exciting as the headline indicates. At closer inspection, you'll find that if all races and income levels are included, only 31% of local eighth-graders were rated proficient on the exam —this matches the national rate. Although 52 % of white students in Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools were rated proficient as compared to less than 40% of their white public-school peers nationwide and in the Carolinas, I'm not celebrating. (For the full report, go to The Nation's Report Card.)

Perhaps this is (relatively) good news for our local school district, but I'm sorry, I don't find these statistics anything to be jumping for joy about. What about the 69% of eighth grade students across the country who aren't meeting this level of proficiency? What about the remaining 48% in Charlotte Mecklenburg?

The "basic" rating, earned by a solid majority of students regardless of location, race, or income, indicates only a partial mastery of grade-level writing. As the Observer reported and the statistics indicate, "proficient writing, defined as solid performance and competency on challenging subjects, was much rarer."

What's the problem here? As an educator involved in teaching writing skills, I speak with lots of teachers around the country. I think there are several weak links in the educational chain. First, I find that almost all teachers feel a great pressure to "teach to the test." So although an argument can be made that at least class time is being devoted to writing, I wonder how much of this preparation (with its concomitant pressure on teachers whose salaries can be tied to their students' performance), is rote or truly teaches the craft of writing. (See the International Reading Association's position paper for more information.)

I believe that writing skills should be developed from a strong foundation of reading and from analytical thinking. Reading has been replaced with playing video games, surfing the Internet (which at least involves more reading skills than video games) watching movies and TV, or competing in sports, than they do reading. Reading MUST be encouraged, supported, and reinforced by parents and educators. Second, I think we don't adequately challenge kids to think critically. Writing involves thinking. Whether fiction or nonfiction, every piece of solid writing requires the author to generate original thoughts. As much as possible, teachers need to be supported in encouraging students of all ages to think for themselves. This doesn't need to be fancy. An author friend of mine, who is a former teacher, said that when students brought a paper for her to read and asked, "What do you think of this?" she'd turn the question around and ask, "What do you think about it?" Critical thinking isn't an educational quick fix; it starts with engaging students mind's rather than being satisfied with rote responses.

Here's my word for the day: metacognition- the ability to reflect on one's own learning experience. Let's teach it. Let's model it. Let's do it ourselves.

Pages