RealeBooks.com

As children from pre-school through high school read less and less, what with being so busy in soccer, video games, karate, Netflicking, bullying each other on the playground, and the like, they bring less and less grasp of book language to schools. Book language, as it turns out, is the most accessible source for children of powerful vocabulary and for engagement with elaborate sentence structures.

Sometimes the simplest gifts are the very best!

We travel a lot in our work with FOCUS project from the Bureau of Indian Education. We work as literacy coaches for three schools serving the children of Native American families. We are gone as much as two weeks a month doing this rewarding work, with dedicated teachers who like all teachers seek to lead their children beyond their circumstances to new possibilities.

Because we have two (rather large) dogs and two cats, while we are traveling it is cheaper to pay a pet sitter for the pack than it is to board all four of them. Not to mention, it’s easier for us and for the pets. Well Rick, our retired but active pet sitter kindly gifted us bookmarks for Christmas. 

It’s a perfect time for parents and teachers to start “the ball” rolling.

The “ball” is literacy. In way-too-many schools and in most homes, literacy has always been considered the act of reading things written by others and “getting” what they are saying. Which, thankfully…and sadly…is (at least) half right. That’s why for most kids, literacy doesn’t actually roll at all. It just sits there. The kids don’t get in the game. They just wander off.

Everybody wants children to learn to read well. It is what we all wish and work for. Capable and confident reading is essential for ensuring for children a future of being fully informed about the roles they may take in their communities. That in turn establishes the fundamentals for them as contributing citizens and productive workers. But, as I’ve said before on this blog, reading is just the “breathing in” of literacy. For becoming fully literate, there must be a breathing out. Writing. These two awesome capabilities work best when they work together.

There’s much to be said about the power of local publication, both for the comfy reading it provides to children who find themselves seeing faces and places they know and love in their books as well as for the writing invitation implied by a system that celebrates what kids already know and love in their communities.

The No Child Left Behind legislation, designed to ensure that all children become fully literate has had some decidedly unexpected side-effects.

Envision a classroom…the teacher speaks

Okay sixth graders, we’re going to stop for just a minute and think about your reading. Our reading test scores aren’t very good, so we need to find out just what the problem is and to work out better ways to help everyone read better. As I ask just four questions I’d like you to write those down and then answer them. The teachers and parents will use this to understand how to help you to become avid readers.

Louisville, Kentucky experienced a meteorological anomaly this week when we were sent winds of up to 75 miles per hour (at the local airport). That wind speed, for which we can thank the remnants of Hurricane Ike, is associated with a category I hurricane. Hardly a neighborhood in this metropolitan area of over a million was spared as 70 year old trees, topping 200 feet tall, were pushed over onto houses, atop cars, across streets, blocking rail lines and of course snapping power and telephone lines. 

Here in political convention season we are inundated with talk. The candidates talk, their supporters talk, the pundits talk and the reporters talk about all the talk.

There are really only two reasons to write anything, to compose anything, to create anything.

1. We do it because it is in us and we have to get it out.

2. We do it because we want to share it with others. 

Okay, let’s get this show on the road! Yikes! The list of things to do seems unending: Names of kids up and in records books, The floor looks great, but everything else…Lordy!, Down with the old, up with…what?, Meetings and meetings and meetings, Forms to be completed, Stuffed mailbox, A gazillion phone messages… and that’s day one. …and there will be so much work to do when “they” arrive. Just teaching the kids the routines, new expectations, and changed procedures will take weeks. Make it clear, make it consistent, make it welcoming. But this year, let’s make it special from the get-go.

Jean Anne Clyde was making her way onto an airplane carrying two BIG books, 2’ x 3’ books that open to twice that size. The young flight attendant said, “Oh, I can put those behind the last seat in first class,” which she did. Later, the attendant approached Jean Anne and said, “Boy those are really big books!” To which Jean Anne replied, “That’s what they’re called. BIG BOOKS.” Still amazed at her discovery, the attendant went on to say, “Heck I could have read that to the entire first class cabin and they could all see it fine!” Smiling, Jean Anne replied, “That’s what they’re for, reading a single book to an entire class of young children so they can all see the same book.”

A year ago, we had our main blog at RealeBooks.com. Then, with a major web site overhaul, we decided that it would be better to have each of the blog’s contributor’s (Mike McGuffee, Mark Condon, and Brad Hutchings) blog at their own RealeLibraries. Of course, this experiment failed for Mike and Brad, while putting Mark’s blog in an obscure location that few could find. So we’re bringing back the blog today!