Today I learned two things:

1. I would be paid $85 per day (before taxes) if I were to become a substitute teacher at the girl’s elementary school.

2. Albert Pujols will sign with the Los Angeles Angels for ten years and $254 million dollars. He will make over $150, 000 per game.

Enough said.

Read more

I go to our local library nearly everyday. I browse the shelves or pick up books I reserve through our inter-library loan system. Sometimes I become self-conscious and worry that the librarians think I have too much free time on my hands. I will tell them how much Caroline is reading right now. How I am constantly reading blogs and reviews looking for new books that she’ll love. How I can hardly keep up with her appetite for books. Most of these conversations end with a giggle and a comment from me or the librarian that is some variation on “It’s a good problem to have.”

I’m pretty sure the picture above illustrates my next good problem. Reading at the dinner table.

Looks like reading will supplement good family conversation for a little while at least…

Read more

I couldn’t agree with these canines more. Interestingly, I remember liking homework as a child. This is interesting because I hate it as a parent. I find myself questioning the meaningfulness of tired children trudging through assignments that often seem to lack meaning. I also believe that homework should reflect a child’s knowledge of the material so I have been hesitant to check homework or to help with it. And let’s be honest here… I also avoid helping because the aforementioned tired children can often be a bit cranky when constructive criticism is offered.

Last night though, I jumped in to homework feet first. Caroline has been frustrated by her reading level at school. She has peers who are moving ahead of her and she is not happy. I have talked with her and her wonderful teacher many times about this so we are all on the same page. Caroline needs to slow down her reading rate as her texts are increasing in complexity. She also needs to demostrate her comprehension in written responses in her reader’s notebook. She has done a beautiful job slowing her rate and can now talk about her books with amazing skill. Her teacher, however. has correctly guessed that she is afraid to write her thoughts down in her notebook. Afraid that she will be wrong.

I have encouraged Caroline again and again to ask her teacher to sit with her while she does a notebook entry to insure her that she is doing the right thing. Caroline has been understandably hesitant to do this.

Last night, I decided that enough was enough. I am, after all, a reading specialist. I do, after all, get paid to train teachers in the use of a reader’s notebooks. I do, after all, sit weekly with students who are being tutored in reading comprehension.

Somehow, the stars aligned and Caroline was willing to sit down with me and tackle this big mountain that is the reader’s notebook entry. Amazingly, she listened, she accepted suggestions and she even smiled. More than once. She did a phenomenal job.

And the best part was, when we finished she said, “I am so proud of myself. I have a new name. P.C. Proud Caroline.”

I went to bed thinking it couldn’t really be better than that.

And then this morning, as soon as Caroline woke up she wrote me this note,

Dear Mommy,

I love you so much (even though you are the weirdest mother on the planet). For giving me the pen and for helping me with my readers notebook entries.

Love, Caroline

Now, even though I am weird, I am pretty sure it doesn’t get better than that.

 

Read more

I love the blogosphere for so many reasons. One such reason is the monthly post titled, Roundup of Children’s Literacy and Reading News written by three incredibly talented women; Jen from Jen Robinson’s Book Page, Terry from the Family Bookshelf and Carol from Rasco for RIF.

This month’s post can (and should!) be found here.

While there are many, many tidbits to be taken from the post, what resonated for me the most was a link to the NY Times Op-Ed article How About Better Parents? by Thomas Friedman. Friedman’s premise is that all the energy that has been put into ‘teacher bashing’ over the past year might be better placed. To support his stand, he sites research based on the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) exams. These exams measure 15 year old’s reading comprehension and knowledge of math and science to solve real world problems. Beginning in 2006, researchers began to interview parents of test takers and to compare information gained during this interview to students test scores.

What they found will not be surprising to those of us who love literature and who love sharing this literature with our children. But it is still nice to have research on our side…

The article states:

“Fifteen-year-old students whose parents often read books with them during their first year of primary school show markedly higher scores in PISA 2009 than students whose parents read with them infrequently or not at all. The performance advantage among students whose parents read to them in their early school years is evident regardless of the family’s socioeconomic background. Parents’ engagement with their 15-year-olds is strongly associated with better performance in PISA.”

So take a few minutes to read the Op-Ed and the Monthly Round-Up and then go read to your kids. It does and will make a difference.

Read more

This weekend was filled with Christmas preparations.

From the downtown tree lighting,

to Christmas tree picking,

 

to visits to Santa

to house decorations…

But it was also filled with questions about traditions, religions and symbols. While trying to process it all, Katherine formed a question that I think sums up how confusing the over-commercialized Christmas has become.

 She said, “If Santa is not the name of Jesus’ dad, then I don’t get it. What the heck!”

Read more

I have been asked again and again if I tutor children in reading. I have in the past but had been taking a break from this work. Then, last week, I was asked again and I decided it was time. Apparently, there is a huge need and I have the skills so it just seemed like the right thing to do. I will be meeting with a fourth grade boy, who does not read for pleasure and is struggling with fluency and comprehension.

In preparation for my session, I re-read sections of Sharon Taberski’s excellent text Comprehension from the Ground Up.

While I was reminded of important research and picked up a few strategies that I will bring to my client, it was the poem at the end of the book that most resonated.

A Lazy Thought

by Eve Merriam

There go the grownups

To the office,

To the store,

Subway rush,

Traffic crush;

Hurry, scurry,

Worry, flurry.

No wonder

Grownups

Don’t grown up

Any more.

It takes a lot

Of slow

To grow.

My hope for my new client is certainly that his reading grades will improve; that he will perform better on our state tests. This is my wish because it is his wish and his mother’s. But more importantly, I hope to give him “a lot of slow to grow.” I hope to share with him books and authors that he can relax in to. I hope to grow him into a reader who sits and slowly devours book after book. It is only through this slow enjoyment of authentic literature that comprehension can grow.

Read more

 

I have written recently about the realization that my girls have different likes and dislikes. I have always acknowledged the huge differences in their personalities but somehow I managed to assume they would be the same type of reader and learner. Fortunately, they are both strong enough to point out these differences.

Just a few weeks ago, I sat down with Caroline to show  her the amazing world of Wonderopolis. To quote their website,

Wonderopolis, a program brought to life by the National Center for Family Literacy, engages and inspires families in the pursuit of education and learning together. We help families create a new force — transforming the parent/child relationship into an engine for progress and upward mobility.

Each day, a question (or a wonder) is posed and answered. Examples include “What is a cowlick?”, “How does medicine know where you hurt?” and “How do touch screens work?” Each answer includes a short video along with a written explanation.

I spend a lot of time worrying about ways the Internet can be used in negative ways both by and against our children. Wonderopolis represents just the opposite. It is truly a way to use the Internet for good. To engage our children in a medium they love while learning all sorts of cool facts.

So that being said, Caroline really did not connect with the site. She sat through one ‘wonder’ and walked away. When I asked her the next day if she wanted to check out the next ‘wonder’ she said no. Fortunately though, Katherine was with us this time and wanted in on the action. She couldn’t get enough of Wonderopolis. She kept asking for another and another and another. We must have watched and read ten ‘wonders’ in one sitting.

And then the next day Katherine asked to “see the site that knows lots of things that I don’t know yet.” And that site would be Wonderopolis, a site whose name is even fun to say. So here’s to both Wonderopolis and to realizing that what is good for one child is not necessarily good for the other. And that is ok.

Read more

Frequent readers of this blog, know about my love of a good Read Together Book.

For those of you who may have just discovered this little corner of the world, I wrote the following about Read Together Books over the summer:

You know emergent readers. They are the ones who are so close to reading that they can almost taste it. The ones who can sound out cvc (consonant-vowel-consonant) words with only minimal effort. The ones who can recognize lots of sight words. The ones who can read books with repetitive text.

And the ones who especially dislike ‘baby books.’

Therefore, finding books to keep these kids engaged is particularly challenging. The beginning reader books that you can find at the bookstore or library are almost always turn offs. And often the books that kids read at school during this stage are “boring.”

So, when I stumble upon a book that is a perfect ‘read together book’ for emergent readers, I admit to doing a little happy dance.

The secret to these books is the ‘read together’ piece. There are not many exciting books that the emergent reader can read on his or her own but there are many books that an emergent reader can read parts of independently. The joy of reading is that it need not  be an all or nothing pursuit. A book does not have to be only a book for independent reading or a book for a read aloud. It can (and should) be a little bit of both.

In finding “read together books”, emergent readers can be exposed to great literature while also focusing on their decoding and sight word skills. And in doing so, their reading confidence sky rockets.

And since then, I continue to search and find excellent Read Together titles. My latest discovery is courtesy of Franki Sibberson at Choice Literacy.

I’ve shared the work of this amazing organization in the past but recently I disovered a list of potential Read Together books on their site and couldn’t have been happier. We are working our way through the list and I thought I would share as we went.

If you have a reader who is just on the brink of reading independently, a reader who needs a bit of a break from the predictable books that show up in her leveled reading bin at school, then Not a Box by Antoinette Portis is a real find. In this story, a rabbit responds again and again to a questioning grown up that what appears to be a box, “is not a box.” With a repeated refrain, Katherine was able to read every other page independently. She was thrilled and confident and excited to launch into the imaginary play that Rabbit so expertly inspires.

Doesn’t get much better than that…

Read more

 

 

To use a cliche (something I try not to do but unavoidable here), I can’t help but feel like a broken record on this issue. I am always amazed by how my children mimic my reading behaviors. Sometimes in really subtle ways and then in just, ‘shout it out-I am copying you’ sorts of ways. It reminds me again and again that in order to raise readers, we must, ourselves be readers. 

Just the other day, Rob asked me, with all the work I’m doing lately, if it’s wise to spend time, “reading for myself.” In case you couldn’t hear me screaming from where you are, it is totally and completely wise. Our girls are readers because we are readers.

I could get into the whole nature-nurture thing here and there is a place for it. There are certainly children of readers who are not readers themselves. This happens for a myriad of reasons including but not limited to learning disabilities. But there are not many readers out there with parents who are not readers. It just doesn’t go that way.

To throw in a few more cliches, children do do what you do, not what you say so practice what you preach and take your own medicine.

The photo above is ‘picture proof’ of all these cliches. Over the weekend, I was jotting down notes from the New York Times of titles  I would like to add to my tottering piles of “to be read books”. A bit later, I noticed that Caroline had started a similar list.

Monkey do…

Read more

The other night, all was amazingly quiet upstairs. For a bit I enjoyed the quiet and then I began to wonder what was going on. It was “potion creating-quiet”, “cutting American Girl hair-quiet”, “drawing a mural on the wall-quiet”. So I tip toed upstairs expecting to catch the girls in a crime.

Instead, I found them snuggled under Caroline’s covers. As Katherine rested her head on Caroline’s shoulder, Caroline read. And read and read. I stood silently and watched page after page turn. When I was discovered,  I went back downstairs to get my camera. Upon returning Caroline made it quite clear that I absolutely, positively could not take a picture of her in her pajamas. Knowing that my pictures often end up on this blog, respect her wishes for what goes out in to the wide world so I reluctantly put my camera down.

Last night though, I felt lucky to be invited to their reading session (pictured above). I couldn’t escape the feeling that time has sped up. How is that I am now listening to Caroline read aloud after years and years of being the reader? How is it that the same books I read to Caroline are now the ones she is reading to Katherine.  Last night’s selection included the amazing Cobblestreet Cousins books by Cynthia Rylant.

Although Katherine has been listening to chapter books for awhile now, I was reminded of what perfect books these are for children new to chapter books. With short chapters, children can retain information from one reading to the next while practicing the important skills of maintaining the flow of the story over multiple readings. That being said, the books are short enough that a few sittings will easily be enough to complete the book. And just to make the books even better, there are six of them in the series. Series books are wonderful for readers new to chapter books. With each new book, the characters and setting are familiar, allowing the reader to focus on the events of the story thereby improving comprehension.

So back to being lucky…lucky for reading daughters, lucky for good books and lucky for daughters who read good books.

Read more