My school district uses leveled books which is a method that I stand firmly behind philosophically. Thank goodness. I have fielded question upon question from parents who are frustrated by the system and feel like their children are lagging behind in reading.

Leveled reading takes place within a guided reading curriculum. According to Irene C. Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell, authors of Guided Reading: Good First Teaching for All Children, “Guided reading is a context in which a teacher supports each reader’s development of effective strategies for processing novel texts at increasingly challenging levels of difficulty.”

In a guided reading program, students are assessed and then assigned a “just right” reading level. For a book to be considered “just right”, the student must read the book with 96% accuracy, accurately respond to at least 75% of literal and inferential comprehension questions, demonstrate sufficient fluency on the Oral Reading Scale and show appropriate retelling of a story based on rubrics.

When reading “just right” books, students solve most of  the words quickly with at least 96% accuracy, use knowledge of what makes sense, sounds right and looks right, read at a good rate with fluency but will also occasionally slow down to engage in successful problem solving  and strengthen their processing power. If a book is too hard or too easy for a student, they are not able to develop these critical literacy skills.

Unfortunately, many parents are not given the opportunity to understand the basic facts of guided reading and therefore spend the year thinking that the books being sent home with their child are too easy.

Last spring, I developed a program called “Taking the Mystery out of Leveled Books” to help parents understand this rich literacy program that their children are engaged in every day. We had such a wonderful and informative evening that I will be offering the program again on October 20 at 7pm at Books, Bytes and Beyond in Glen Rock, NJ. If you are local and would like to attend, please call Books, Bytes and Beyond at 201-670-6766 for more information. Advanced registration is required.

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So… for those of you who are in to tv, imagine being asked to sit on the panel for the Emmy’s? If you like movies, suppose  you got to choose this year’s Oscar winners? Well, welcome to my excitement! Since the Cybils began in 2006, I have been following the nominations and the winners closely. The Cybils,  you see, are a children’s literacy consultant’s Oscar and Emmy combined. Yearly, children’s literacy bloggers come together in an official way to select the best books of the year in various categories.

I had been reading the requirements for judging for a few weeks trying to decide if I wanted to take the leap. Finally, I wrote an e-mail with a link to this blog, crossed my fingers and hit send. Over the weekend, I received an e-mail that I will serve as one of the panelist for the Easy Reader/Easy Chapter Book category.

To learn more about the Cybils and my fellow panelists check out the information below taken from the Cybils website.

The 2010 Easy Readers/Early Chapter Books Panel

We’re excited to introduce the slate of hardworking literacy advocates, teachers, parents and book enthuasiasts–bloggers all, of course–in charge of winnowing down the nominations for our Easy Readers and Early Chapter Books category. For those who need a reminder, Easy Readers are those 6″x9″ books designed specifically for children learning to read.

Panel Organizer: Anastasia Suen, 5 Great Books, Weekend Reads

Panelists (Round I Judges):

Jeff Barger, NC Teacher Stuff
Terry Doherty, Children’s Literacy/Reading Tub
Julie Jurgens, Hi Miss Julie!
Cynthia Lord, Cynthia Lord
Stacey Loscalzo, Stacey Loscalzo
Anastasia Suen (see category organizer)
Melissa Taylor, Imagination Soup

Judges (Round II):

Jeremy Brunaccioni, Picture Book Review, Share What You’re Reading
Eric Carpenter, What We Read and What We Think
Sharon Hrycewicz, Reading Chick
Susan Kusel, Wizards Wireless
Lisa Von Drasek, EarlyWord Kids

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I must admit that I get a little bit star struck by authors. I am so amazed by their talent and the worlds they create in their minds. A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to meet Suzanne Collins, the author of the wildly fantastic Hunger Games and instead of the thousands of questions I wanted to ask her, I broke into hives and thanked her for coming. That was it. Opportunity wasted.

Next week, I will again have a chance to meet an author. This time I will have my questions prepared and maybe even written down for Tad Hills the creator of the adorable Duck and Goose and now Rocket of How Rocket Learned to Read.

In this tale, Rocket stumbles upon a bird eager to teach. At first Rocket insists that all he wants to do is nap but through the wonder of reading aloud, the yellow bird shows Rocket the magic of books. As the bird flies south for the winter she calls to Rocket, “Don’t forget! Words are built one letter at a time!” After a winter of work, Rocket is able to read with the yellow bird when she returns in springtime. How Rocket Learns to Read is a book with such an important message joined with a lovable character and delightful illustrations.

For those readers who live in Bergen County, please come join me and meet Tad Hills at Books, Bytes and Beyond on Wednesday, September 29 at 4pm. Please click through to their website to learn all about registering for this fun event. See you there!

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The other night, the girls and I laughed and laughed as we read Kate DiCamillo’s latest book, Bink & Gollie.

I am always amazed at DiCamillo’s versatility as an author but  that is a post for another day. Today’s post is all about comprehension.

Parents talk to me all the time about flashcards, workbooks and computer programs. They seem giddy at the thought of buying a product that will help their children learn to read. In truth, all of these parents have the tools they need right at hand, in their homes, resting on their tables and bookshelves. Sometimes I am amazed at the simplicity of it myself but the truth is, to teach your child to read all you need is a book. And a bit of knowledge.

In order to help build reading comprehension skills with children it is crucial that they learn to make connections in their reading. As authors such as Ellin Oliver Keene and Susan Zimmermann point out in their book Mosaic of Thought

and Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis stress in their book Strategies that Work,

readers must make three types connections in order to strengthen comprehension. Text to self connections occur when a reader says things like “That character sounds just like my Aunt Jane!” or “The camp in this books reminds me so much of the one I went to last summer.” Text to text connections occur when readers note the similarities between a book they are reading now and a book they read in the past like, “I can’t believe it! The same thing happened in Ramano Quimby, Age 8!”  And you see text to world connections when readers make connections between the text and things going on in the world around them like, “Wow! This character is fighting in the Revolutionary War. We just learned about that in Social Studies.”

As grown ups, we make these connections subconsciously, without realizing how much they aid us in our reading comprehension. While some children will come to make these connections on their own, many children need to be taught to use them. This teaching is simple. All that is involved is making connections out loud when you read. I have been doing this with my girls all along and last night I was rewarded for this simple act.

In Bink and Gollie, there is a section in which the smaller character is taking care of the bigger character. Katherine, my four year old, commented casually, “She is taking care, like little sister.” It only took me a moment to realize that her little brain had done something remarkable. She had made an accurate and thoughtful text to text connection. In Big Sister and Little Sister by Charlotte Zolotow,

the little sister does indeed ‘take care’ of the big sister, just like Bink.

Katherine had taken a huge comprehension step and all I had done was occasionally read and comment, “That reminds me of…” I loved this reminder that building comprehension can be fun, effective and workbook-free. Try it out and let me know what happens…

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My oldest started second grade this fall and with this change came more homework.  Caroline is awfully tired at the end of the day and while she is an excellent student, doing homework is not high on her list. Each night she must do one sheet of math problems and a word study activity. Following this work, she must read for 20 minutes and record her time on a log. Part of the time she is to read out loud to a grown up before reading silently to herself for the remainder of the 20 minutes. Caroline has always loved books, being read to and reading herself. As she has become a confident reader, I do not ask her to read aloud very often.

The other night, I was reminded of why oral reading is still an important part of the reader’s diet long after the child becomes fluent. Caroline was clearly exhausted and barely hearing her own words as she pronounced the word ‘doubt’ as do-butt. Katherine, my younger daughter, had been playing on the floor near us but not obviously listening to the story. Until she heard the word ‘do butt.’ “Do butt, do butt!”, she screamed over and over again. After we stopped our hysterical laughing, I was able to tell Caroline how to accurately pronounce the word. In addition, I pointed to her that the sentence, after all, had not made sense. A mini comprehension lesson arose from our great laughter.

Without the benefit of reading aloud, Caroline would have skimmed right past that word and in her tiredness, perhaps not double checked for meaning. By reading aloud for 5 minutes, she learned not only a new sight  word (because after all, how do you sound out ‘doubt’), but an important reading comprehension strategy as well.

This experience was an important reminder to fill out our reader’s diets with read alouds, independent silent reading and oral reading. Each offers a wealth of value to a growing reader.

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Long before I actively started blogging here, I read and read and read other’s children’s literacy blogs. One of my favorites is the Book Chook. While the blog itself is fantastic, I am particularly fond of the magazine, Literacy Lava, edited and published by the Book Chook’s  owner.

The sixth issue of Literacy Lava, a free pdf for parents or anyone who wants kids to love reading, writing and communicating, is now available from The Book Chook. Clicking on this link will take you to the exact page where you just have to click the cover of Literacy Lava 6 to download it as a pdf.

As the editor of the magazine writes, “In this sixth edition of Literacy Lava, you’ll find ideas for revving up reluctant readers, using poetry to support literacy, ways to tell tales with story stones, how to unlock the mysteries of early readers, ways to get the most from travel with children, how to get started with a father/son book club, using newspapers to build literacy, and lots of fun learning activities with buttons and bottle caps.”

I encourage you to devour the information in this edition of Literacy Lava and then to download past issues as well. The magazines are rich with ideas to bring literacy into your homes in fun and exciting ways.  Enjoy!

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Yesterday morning, I paused outside of my daughter’s door to hear my girls reading. Without the help of a teacher, they were participating in a shared reading of a repetitive text. My seven year old used her decoding skills to target any unfamiliar words while my four year old built her reading confidence and sight word knowledge by reciting a phrase that repeated over and over throughout the book.

I am always on the look-out for books that are full of repetitive text. Some pre-readers blossom under the tutelage of titles such as the Bob Books that are full of , decodebale, controlled vocabulary and there is a certainly a place in every reader’s diet for books such as these. Equally important, though (if not more so for some readers) are books that the children will consider “real books”, those with good pictures and a true story.

 As pre-readers ‘memorize’ and then repeat a line that appears throughout the text, magic is at work. The young child is matching words to text and developing a concept of word. With some help, children can learn to point word by word as they read. If they get ahead of their finger, they’ll start to recognize the words they’ve skipped. As children see the same print over and over again, many of the words on the page will become sight words without having to go through flashcard after flashcard.

Many popular children’s books such as Brown Bear Brown Bear and I Went Walking contain repetitive text but if you pay close attention (or have a seven year old that does!), you’ll come to see repetitive text in many, many books. Look to see that the print is large and well spaced for these early readers and you’re ready to go.

Our current favorite book full of repetive text is Karen Beaumont’s Who Ate All the Cookie Dough.

I  always love to hear about new books so please go to the comment sections to share your favorite books with repetitive text.

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As a mom and a literacy consultant, there are few things sweeter than stumbling across a new author. Amy Krause Rosenthal is one of those authors I would love to meet. I just think I would like her as both a person and as a writer. She clearly writes for  the child and the adult who is lucky enough to read with that  child.

At the library the other day, we checked out Little Pea.

and loved it. After all, who wouldn’t love the story of a pea who has to eat his dinner of candy before he can go on to enjoy his dessert of spinach. Both of my girls (ages 4 and 7) asked to read Little Pea again and again and again. When this happens, I know we’re on to something. Instead of sighing and saying, “All right, I’ll read it one more time.” as we tired moms are often temped to do, I kept reading while trying to figure out what was captivating to the girls. More than the clever illustrations and the funny message, the girls seemed to be enjoying the author’s voice. I heard two words in my head, “Author Study!”

Author studies are frequently completed in classrooms but there is no reason not to have author studies right in the comfort of our homes. I went to library and checked out every title I could find by Amy Krause Rosenthal.  Along the way, I discovered that we actually already had a few of Rosenthal’s titles in our home library.

We had laughed out loud while reading Bedtime For Mommy,

discussed sibling rivalry while reading It’s Not Fair

and created our own ‘wonder poems’ after reading The Wonder Book.

With my library bag full to overflowing with such titles as Spoon,

and Yes Day

and It’s One of Those Days,

I headed home to an afternoon full of reading, re-reading, discussion and book writing as part of our super informal author study. We talked about what made Rosenthal’s writing funny, why we thought she chose different illustrators for different  books and what kinds of questions we might ask her if we were lucky enough to meet her one day.

My list is now growing and growing as I think of all our future author studies. I’ll be sure to share here so check back often…

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