Try Again, Fail Again, Fail Better – Samuel Beckett A failure is an event – It is not a person. – Zig Ziglar Some simple things are learned in a flash, like not touching fire. It only takes one mistake to learn the associated lesson, and it’s the same lesson for everyone. Most valuable lessons however, yielding […]
When the dregs from Hurricane Nate drifted up to my home in Louisville, Ky., my wife and I enjoyed a couple of days of lovely soft rain, happy to have missed the torrential rains experienced by gulf coast states in the Deep South. The welcome rains came after a several-week dry spell that had lawns turning brown […]
My spouse and I watch very little television beyond the news, the arts and collegiate sports. However, we do subscribe to and receive dozens of magazines at our house. They cover a myriad of subjects, like news, politics, women’s issues, health and photography. They are about literacy education, science and exploration, and cultural history, too. We intentionally pile […]
Reading. Each week I write for parents, teachers and teacher educators about the very basics of reading. I address the ultimate reason why as a culture we should spend so much time, energy, and money on it. Sadly, the ultimate goal I refer to is rarely uttered in school board meetings. It is seldom discussed by teachers, and […]
It’s graduation time! Celebrations of educational accomplishments are both appropriate and welcome in June…but only if they are warranted. Have you noticed that just about anywhere folks talk or write about the importance of literacy in becoming well-educated they always add the word skills after their focus? It is common when one discusses “reading,” regarded as […]
When a book is enthusiastically read, there is a clear flow of information from the author to the eager reader. She gets her own unique kind of delight from the book by making personal sense of the author’s words, text and illustrations, connecting it with what she already knew, understood or experienced. The enjoyment can […]
What’s the best assessment of the educational value of a daily shared reading experience? By shared reading I mean that special kind of reading that happens when two or more people share a book together. This includes the lively (I hope) book transcription by a sufficiently experienced reader that then evokes the sharing of personal reflections about each book’s content […]
I’ve been told that mathematics is the study of patterns and relationships. I think there’s a special pattern and unique relationships to reading, also. It is represented in the above formula. Here’s the pattern part. A child in the primary grades is likely to be thrilled when he begins to get how reading works. It may be […]
Unite for Literacy recruits bilingual volunteers to support early literacy around the world. We seek out fluent native speakers of world languages, including English, to translate and narrate our books from English into other mother tongues. In turn, Unite for Literacy offers those book narrations for free to families around the world. This partnership has many rewards. […]
It’s March which means there’s much to celebrate! Like the spring equinox on the 20th, St. Patrick’s Day on the 17th and the beginning of the U.S. college men’s basketball showdown—March Madness—on the 14th (GO Cards!). March also provides an opportunity to celebrate reading, as it is Read Aloud Month. This recognition is promoted by Read Aloud […]
