Tag Archives: reading

The Problem With Reading Rewards

This week I happened upon a terrific article in The New York Times about summer reading. It is about rewarding kids for reading. The article’s headline (shown here) caught my attention because my experience is also that rewards for reading rarely have positive outcomes. The article made me reflect upon the important difference between children who can read and child avid readers. As most healthy library systems do, in my town, Louisville, Kentucky’s fabulous library has a “summer reading” program. It serves as a lure to get […]

Simply the Best

I recently read that National Public Radio’s expert panel (with input from 7000 listeners) had judged and selected the members of a collection of what they call the 100 funniest books ever. The books are presented in categories with book covers and nice paragraphs to capture imaginations about what delights are to be found in each one. I […]

School Library ≠ Book Warehouse

There seem to be two competing agendas operating in lots of schools with tight budgets. Literacy learning is a top funding priority in our school. The librarian costs too much, so we should just hire a clerk or use the library as a study hall. Pick one. We can’t promote both of these. The research […]

Long-Ignored Road to Reading Success

Every few months it seems there is news that focuses our attention on the perennially pitiful job schools do in improving reading. The proposed solutions are predictably pitiful as well. Schools that have been doing A should check out B, and schools that have been doing B might want to try C. The options for school-wide […]

Yes! They Need to Talk About It.

The ultimate goal of literacy education is developing children’s love of books and reading. That’s because such love will manifest in patterns of lifelong learning via daily joyful reading of self-selected books and other media. But it’s not just having the books and media that will make a child a lifelong reader and learner. It’s […]

Size matters and TED speakers know it

TED is an acronym for an organization focused on Technology, Entertainment and Design* that seeks to share recent developments and big ideas in these three areas of rapid growth. TED is most commonly encountered in the short phrase, TED Talks, which are 18-minute short lectures/presentations by clearly brilliant people on topics that a large number of folks who […]

The Skilled Non-Reader

These days, pretty much every time we encounter the word “reading” in a communication about schooling, we’ll also find the word “skills.” For example, we might hear statements like: Our school’s reading scores indicate a need for better skill instruction. We need to assess her reading skills before we can identify a proper leveled book. […]

The Game is Never Over!

Public schools in the U.S. on a traditional schedule are closing for the summer, with buses making their final run full of chattering children, excited to be finished with the school game for a few months. But unfortunately, this also is often the first day of the Summer Slide, the path taken by way too […]

ILA/CBC Children's Choices 2017 Reading List

Choose Choice Books to Grow Lifelong Readers

Each year the International Literacy Association (previously known as the International Reading Association) publishes three Choices Reading Lists which identify the choicest books published within the last year as selected by three groups: children, teens and professionals. The Choices Reading Lists offer titles and brief teaser-descriptions of the books that are surefire winners for those three populations. As […]

What is a Culture of Literacy and Why is it Important?

The essential resource for children to become literate is a culture* rich in reading and writing. Children reared in such a culture will naturally grow to become lifelong readers and writers. Those who grow up in a culture devoid of reading and writing may be taught to read and write on demand, yet are not likely […]