Latest in Literacy Blog
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10 Ways to Explode Your Students’ Excitement for Reading!
Read more: 10 Ways to Explode Your Students’ Excitement for Reading!How do you get kids excited about books? Over my 25 years of teaching, I’ve discovered many ways to spark excitement. Here are 10 to get you started: 1. Start an After-School Book Club Invite a guest reader from the community to kick off the meetings. After the read-aloud, the kids spread out to read…
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Include Me!
Read more: Include Me!All children like to read things they can relate to or that make them feel good. And the best children’s stories I “read” were those on the laps of my parents. In order to write books for children of a different mold than our own, we need to know them. I grew up in a…
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Using Children’s Literature and Stories to Change Culture in Your School or Classroom
Read more: Using Children’s Literature and Stories to Change Culture in Your School or ClassroomUsing children’s stories to bolster a sense of community connectedness and improve the culture at your school Imagine this… You are a classroom teacher or a counselor or a principal. You see and feel the culture of your learning community and note the need for a change. It is 2021 and people from all walks…
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Background is Everything
Read more: Background is EverythingAlthough we don’t generally think about it, every experience we have adds to a repertoire of events that create “us” – our background. The stories we share with friends, the lessons we teach our kids, and the bank of knowledge we use to make decisions in the moment. Everything we encounter adds to this background,…
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How writing can help you read
Read more: How writing can help you readDuring meetings, are you a notetaker? I often find myself scribbling down notes throughout a meeting only to never refer to them again, simply because I remember what is on them. The act of writing down the information helps my brain convert it to long term memory. The same thing happens when children write. Even…
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What is your Literary History?
Read more: What is your Literary History?Pleasure reading and assigned reading are not mutually-exclusive activities Have you ever taken pause to consider your personal literary history? I remember back to my senior year, an honors English class where I was asked to do this very exercise. It is remarkable how influential the very first pieces of text you consumed are. They…
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If You Build It, They Will Read
Read more: If You Build It, They Will ReadIt’s not enough to say that home libraries are important. We need to take it a step further and ask why home libraries are important and how we can help build your student’s home library. Why a home library? Let’s start with this: “Children growing up in homes with many books get 3 years more…
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The Allure of the Graphic Novel
Read more: The Allure of the Graphic NovelAs your fairly typical “boy mom”, I can tell you I’ve seen just about every kind of graphic novel for kids. Long before my son discovered Marvel and DC superheroes, he found Captain Underpants, The Adventures of Dogman, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid, to name a few. Perhaps at first glance, graphic novels or…
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Book Deserts – Blame or Rain
Read more: Book Deserts – Blame or RainMany kids survive in a “book desert” without access to books. Let’s rain books onto every child to create a book oasis instead. “Something that provides refuge, relief, or pleasant contrast.” Oh, wait… that’s an oasis. During this current crisis, many of us have spent time creating our own oasis with multiple trips to Home…
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The Empowerment of Student Choice
Read more: The Empowerment of Student ChoiceEmpowering kids to make their own choices Being a kid can be rough sometimes. Sure, as adults we look back at all the snack times recesses and naptimes that we took for granted, but kids oftentimes don’t have much of a voice when it comes to curricula, learning plans, and homework. Ask just about any…