I recently encountered an article indicating that school-age children rarely talk with their friends about what they are “free” reading, mostly because they don’t have time in their academic day. Wait! Really? That’s huge! This lost conversation represents a lost educational opportunity, seemingly sacrificed on the altar of what apparently passes for instructional efficiency! But […]
Read with your children. Talk about what you read. Relax and have fun. That simple model for guiding parents to bring the rich content and language of books fully, yet gently, into children’s lives is our mantra at Unite for Literacy. That’s one HOW of optimizing children’s cognitive potentials for success in school and beyond. This […]
Part of rearing lifelong readers is ensuring children grow up eager to fearlessly explore new books. Another part is letting them make poor choices about what they read. A young girl might be eager to engage with a book because the adults in her life are convinced it will be too challenging. A young boy might already have read and enjoyed several […]
When a learner’s family and community commit to developing full literacy for everyone, there are at least two principles that guide efforts in that development: The community must ensure its literacy learners have ready access to abundant good books to read (“good” meaning relevant to each learner’s life). Those closest to literacy learners must ensure they are […]
I recently reviewed the latest Scholastic Kids and Family Reading Report (2014) and was struck by the many interesting statistics shared through this well-designed survey about book reading by children and families. For example, 60 percent of the more than 2500 parents surveyed said they received the advice from someone that reading books to children from birth […]
Putting training wheels on a child’s bike has become a passé way to teach them to learn to ride a bike. Balance bikes—bicycles without pedals that kids push with their feet and glide along on—are much more effective; they teach kids how to balance more quickly. It takes a typical kid about an hour to […]
Learning from sun up till sundown. That’s what small children do. Everyday they busily seek out and learn from everything they can reach to see, hear, feel, smell or taste. They engage with people and objects to explore what impact they can have upon them. It’s an effort to understand and exert some kind of control over things in […]
Have you seen the new cute little alarm clocks for babies, toddlers and preschoolers? No. No you haven’t. I hope you never will. If not interrupted by a full diaper or falling out of bed, small children will wake up when they are finished with their sleeping. They know when they are ready. Upon waking children immediately […]
“Remember that time in 8th-grade science class when Mr. Oetting blew into the pig’s lungs?” “Oh, man! I haven’t thought about that in years. Yes! That was so cool!” Has this ever happened to you? Have you suddenly remembered something that one would think would be unforgettable? Something that once seemed really important or interesting? […]
At its best, literacy starts conversations that can bring people closer together in understanding and connectedness. Literacy falls short of that promise when what passes for sharing books actually interrupts or stops such conversation. Ideally, literacy, like conversation, is a means for offering others information, feelings and experiences. Authors carefully craft what they wish to […]
