Jean Anne Clyde, my dear wife, is also a retired teacher educator, who focused her university teaching on literacy. Recently, she volunteered at a school two blocks from our home. Every Tuesday she drags a suitcase filled with favorite kids’ books to the school. For an hour each week, Jean Anne works with primary school children, helping them improve their literacy–not just […]
By Mike McGuffee My mother always had a garden. To be precise, she had lots of gardens. Our yard was dotted with plants that were given the prospect of a good life from my mother’s hands. Through the backyard of my childhood, I grew alongside Black Diamond Watermelons and Paper Shell Pecan Trees. I believe […]
Teaching children—whether as a professional educator or as a parent—is the delicate, challenging business of shepherding youngsters through experiences they don’t know much about, that they don’t know how to accomplish and that they may not know how to fit into their lives, nor that they may desire to learn. Teaching is not a simple process of herding children around […]
I have a sweet tooth. There’s no denying it. And to my chagrin, my eternally slender wife outlaws anything coming through the front door that would make my mouth water like virtually any and all sweets do. However, it is a given that when we are out of the house for a meal that I am allowed (if […]
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 […]
