Authors’ voices are heard and emotions are felt when we read with expression.
Archive | Avid Readers
Seek Your Passion, Find Your Element
Self-selected reading offers children an opportunity to discover their passions.
Beyond Storybooks
Stories delight and entertain. Factual books can add enhance stories’ topics. There’s a place for both fiction and nonfiction books on every bookshelf.
Wandering, Wondering and Books
Children taught to ask questions enter school ready to learn.
Well-Educated or Well-Read?
In the 1940s, a high school diploma was considered the ultimate in formal education. Over the years, as professions and business development grew, society required more and more education. By the 1960s, a college education became the pinnacle of educational attainment. By the year 2000, without that single piece of paper, there wasn’t much available […]
Abandoned Books = Fraud Readers?
When I was a child in school—a thousand years ago—we were taken weekly to the library and encouraged to find books we could enjoy for that week. The following week, we’d return the previous week’s choices, swapping them for a new set of books. Simple. Early on, when a book report was called for, or […]
The Simplicity of Building Literacy Foundations
This week, my hometown newspaper published a list of 100 books to enjoy during social distancing, which reminded me of many similar lists that have been published recently for parents, for new graduates, and for kids. The Children’s and Teen Choice Book Awards lists of books preferred by kids are among my favorites. (I featured them in my May 21, 2020, blog.) […]
Books Provide Powerful Learning, Heartfelt Conversation
I’ve just finished reading one of 10 essays from the 2012 book When I Was a Child I Read Books, by Marilynne Robinson. It was a no brainer for a literacy teacher, teacher educator and a contributor to a children’s library like myself to be drawn to a book with this title. However, I received this […]
How Swapping Stories Can Ignite Lifelong Learning
I recently read an article in The New York Times about the decline of road trips, including hitchhiking 0r “road bumming.” (And no, all the blame doesn’t go to the COVID-19 pandemic.) I think folks largely have stopped picking up hitchhikers for many reasons, including an increase in: a sense of mistrust; an unwillingness of the haves […]
Kids Taught to Choose What They Read Can Choose Reading for Life
The International Literacy Association in partnership with the Children’s Book Council recently released the annual Children’s and Teen Choice Book Awards and its lists of books preferred by kids.* Each year for decades 12,500 youngsters from around the U.S. have participated in creating the lists by reading books and voting on their favorites—their choices. The lists offer consistently […]