If the only letter we encourage our children to write is that yearly one to Santa, we’re doing literacy wrong.
Tag Archives: literacy
Kids Must Learn to Read and to Be Readers
Images of Americans lined up to vote are all over the news and Internet. Being a literacy kind of guy, I’ve been searching those images to see if folks are reading during all of those hours of waiting. Few look to be doing so. Every 20th person or so. Most people are masked and just […]
Literacy Changes Us
How soon should you begin to read and talk with your child? From birth or before. The more literacy experiences a child has from the get go, the more they’ll be ready to take on the world.
Giving Voice
Authors’ voices are heard and emotions are felt when we read with expression.
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 […]
How to Create a Pandemic History Book
History books are a gift to help us never forget. They are like breathing in at the focus time and then breathing out years later. By recording history we capture a point in time for future reflections. Daunting? But writing a history book that accurately reflects the facts is challenging. A well-written, vetted history book takes planning and […]
Expanding Expressions of Literacy
Sometimes we educators get focused on literacy development in young children exclusively in the form of reading, as if print is the only kind of communication between humans. Granted, print is the most venerated form of literacy in our culture. Mastering this literacy skill leads to becoming avid, self-determined, lifelong print readers, writers and learners, and […]
Take Advantage of the Time Machine
With school years suspended, possibly for the duration of the pandemic, academic regimentation dictated by age, test scores and past accomplishment disappears. This is good news, folks! Positively possible Families suddenly are left in a homebound world of what could be infinite learning possibilities regardless of a child’s school status. Developing the habit of unstructured, fulfilling lifelong learning […]