Reading to a dog

For those who love dogs, you'll completely understand this great story about a programme for learner readers to read to a dog...
http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/10/22/dogs.irpt/index.html
Learning to read? Try talking to a dog [CNN]

I saw this happen at Russell School quite a few years ago - a young boy was out on the verandah, sitting cross legged with a lovely dog (the Principal Keith Dowdle's dog) resting its chin on the boy's knee while the boy read - it really looked as if the dog was listening and looking at the pictures - if only I'd had my camera !

Hi there
Thanks Jeannie for your help . I think I am in now
Raewyn

Notes on the "summer slide"

Overcoming the “summer slide” : students and reading mileage, summer holidays and the school library…

• The “summer slump” or “summer slide” is the decline in reading achievement children suffer just from being away from school and formal literacy instruction.
• Often it is the students who can least afford to lose the reading gains they've achieved during the school year who fall the furthest behind when they return to school after a summer break.
• A New Zealand masters thesis[1] showed a 5.8 month summer reading slide for pupils in a Decile 1 school who were reading at below-average levels. · In a key Baltimore study[2] it was found that low-income children fell further behind than their classmates – characterised as the “the Harry Potter divide”, and that the effects are cumulative and long-term.
• Term 4 is the time to consider how your school can prevent any “summer slide” and what strategies you can implement before the end of term for the coming holiday...

Perhaps the two main actions to consider are

• getting parents on board, informing / reminding them of the powerful benefits for children of reading and being read to, and that even just 10 minutes reading a day by or to children will maintain / develop their child’s reading skills, habit and enthusiasm…
• looking at ways to get books in hands / homes during the holidays and what role the school library or the resource room might play in this, as well as liaison with the public library to encourage membership and use…

There are other strategies, such as making sure children have the skills to choose reading material independently, how to build some fun writing activities into their summer reading programme, or setting challenges – individual, class and school targets for reading mileage.

It would be also be productive to gather evidence of the impact of any initiative you take.

Perhaps the discussion at your school could also include an invitation / challenge to teachers to extend their own summer reading of children’s books – getting to know children’s books that they can promote to their students next year, read aloud, incorporate into their teaching programme…

For more information, discussion or workshops at your school on this topic, please contact your National Library Adviser – Dyane Hosler or Jeannie Skinner.

1 An investigation of the effectiveness of a summer school reading intervention in a low decile school as a way of preventing the summer slide in reading, Shanthi Tiruchittampalam, University of Auckland, MEd thesis 2006
2 Lasting Consequences of the Summer Learning Gap Karl L. Alexander, Doris R. Entwisle, Linda Steffel Olson, John Hopkins University, Baltimore in American Sociological Review, 2007, Vol. 72 (April:167–180)

Messages for parents about summer reading...

Here are some notes you may wish to use as a starting point for communicating with parents… Put them onto your school letterhead or in a newsletter, and edit them as you wish…

3 important messages for parents / caregivers / whanau

We know you want the best for your children.
Here are three things you can do which will really help them :

1. Encourage your children to read.

• If your children spend 15 minutes each day reading or being read to, it will help them become excellent readers, writers and thinkers and do well at school and life.
• 15 minutes is only 1 % of each day. It could be in 3 lots of 5 minutes. It isn’t much time but it makes a HUGE difference.
• If you would like some help getting books to read and share, then please ask us, we’d be happy to help.

2. Keep reading and writing happening over the school holidays.

• Many children, especially struggling readers, forget some of what they've learned or slip out of practice during the summer holidays. If you keep reading to your child and encouraging them to read and write, then they won’t lose ground they have made over the year and “slide” back.
• Keep it fun – read anything, write anything – lists, recipes, stories, postcards, comics… Ask your child’s teacher for ideas.

3. Read aloud to your children.

• The single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children.
• Reading aloud to children stimulates their interest, their emotional development, their imagination, and their language.
• Reading aloud to your children every day will help them become great readers and listeners, but most of all they will love you for doing it with them and they will remember the times you read to them all their lives !

Jeannie Skinner, Library Adviser, National Library School Services

Summer slump - NLNZ workshop 7

The NLNZ session at Workshop 7 explores the importance of maintaining the progress made by your students in your class during the year by setting up strategies to keep reading and writing happening over the school holidays - avoiding the "summer slump". In this session we discussed what teachers, parents, libraries, the school and the children themselves can do...

Contact Dyane or Jeannie if you would like a copy of the powerpoint to share at your school with staff.

Here are some links to articles about the summer slump :
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/c41/ Summary of articles...

Summer Reading Loss by Maryann Mraz and Timothy V. Rasinski (2007) http://www.readingrockets.org/articles/15218

These are some suggestions from the Whangarei JuLS group on what they plan to do:

• Intend to set up school LibraryThing to record summer reading
• Promote the library in newsletters and the need to read.
• School newsletter item about summer slide
• LibraryThing class site - link up with other classes as "friends"
• I will be better prepared to set up a focus group to monitor over summer.
• Will try and inspire community to make this work
• Look forward to bringing it up at staff meeting to discuss
  
• Good ideas for making books. Will follow through with newsletter
• Will make class slogan for summer holiday reading.
• Had not really thought about this issue deeply and now I realise we can make a difference.·
• Share at syndicate meeting.·

Innovative Teachers' Companion

Andrew Clements, a teacher at Kaikohe West School, heartily recommended this teacher planning diary - the Innovative Teachers' Companion. The website www.itcpublications.com.au

For Australian and NZ teachers, it has double page spreads for teacher daily / weekly planning as usual, interleaved with a variety of teaching strategies for critical and creative thinking. It costs NZ $33 and with purchase comes access to the website with a huge number of resources to download. I imagine that having these ideas and suggestions right in your planning book could be really useful...

I contacted Sharon Birss at the Tai Tokerau Ed Centre which sells it (s.birss@auckland.ac.nz / ph 09 470 1023) and she has kindly given me a 2009 Primary edition (Secondary edition also available) as a sample to show at network meetings etc.

Teachers as Readers (UK research)

The UKLA UK Literacy Association has undertaken research which I find interesting, about teachers as readers and about the relationship between reading instruction and reading for pleasure. There is such a role for the school library to play here...

http://www.ukla.org/site/research/research_projects_in_progress/teachers_as_readers_building_communities_of_readers/

The first phase of the Teachers as Readers research (2006-7) looked at patterns in primary teachers' reading, both personally and professionally - looking at their own personal reading habits and preferences, their knowledge of children's literature, their own childhood favourites and books significant to them, their use of texts in the classroom, and use of libraries...

Teachers as readers Report
http://www.ukla.org/download.php?file=/downloads/TARwebreport.doc

Teachers as readers Questionnaire
http://www.ukla.org/download.php?file=/downloads/tars.pdf

The goal of the second phase of the research is Building Communities of Readers (2007-8) to improve teachers’ knowledge and experience of literature in order to help them increase children’s motivation and enthusiasm for reading, especially those less successful in literacy, to build new relationships with parents and families and to explore the concept of a reading teacher: a teacher who reads and a reader who teaches (Commeyras et al., 2004).

The Executive Summary provides an overview of the research and the key findings as well as recommendations. It argues that teachers need support in order to develop children’s reading for pleasure, which can influence both attainment and achievement and increase young learners’ engagement as self- motivated and socially engaged readers.

http://www.ukla.org/downloads/teachers_as_readers.pdf


Click on the picture to enlarge a summary of key findings :
Reading instruction - oriented towards learning to read, Reading for Pleasure oriented towards choosing to read...

Themed literacy bags for younger students

I recommend checking out the Reading Rockets website http://www.readingrockets.org/
it is full of interesting links and useful resources. I've subscribed to the free monthly newsletter.

From their website : Reading Rockets offers a wealth of reading strategies, lessons, and activities designed to help young children learn how to read and read better. Our reading resources assist parents, teachers, and other educators in working with struggling readers who require additional help in reading fundamentals and comprehension skills development.

In the latest newsletter from Reading Rockets there is a new "literacy bag" based on the "Where the wild things are" by Maurice Sendak. Browse their full library of Family Literacy Bags. And for additional information about Family Literacy Bags, you might want to read this article.

I could imagine these literacy bags being a great resource for Parent Mentoring Programmes or in junior classrooms.

Mo Willems blog

I came across Mo Willems' blog - http://mowillemsdoodles.blogspot.com/ the other day - he is one of my favourite picture book author/illustrators, creator of the inimitable Knuffle bunny, Edwina, Pigeon...

I loved the idea of his family dining room being decorated with chalkboard - the latest version are portraits in frames - have a look http://mowillemsdoodles.blogspot.com/2009/10/weve-been-framed-chalkboard-walls2.html

There are links from this blog to other Mo Willems information - websites, interviews and the great teacher resources too - http://www.pigeonpresents.com/grownup.aspx

wickED at TKI

A message from Anne Mason, Community facilitator at TKI :

"I would be most grateful if you can send me a list of popular topics requested by schools and students in your region. I am the project co-ordinator for wickED, http://www.wicked.org.nz

wickED is a quality-assured online environment for 7-12 year olds (years 3-8), developed to complement the Ministry of Education’s study support centres initiative. wickED provides engaging curriculum-based learning activities in English and te reo Māori, many of which have been developed to reflect a literacy, numeracy and ESOL focus. The activities are intended to support facilitated or independent use by students.

Each month our team add new learning activities and are keen to know of topics that you find are of interest to students of this age. We would very much appreciate a list of topics if you have one available. Many thanks, Anne."

Have you visited the wickED site ? From the home page :

Explore the wickEDly cool things on this site! Quizzes, crosswords, interactives and games in English and te reo Māori, a gallery of student artworks, profiles of inspirational New Zealanders, an information station, and activities and games based around topics – it’s all here – on wickED!

Reading and comprehension strategies

Here is a link to an interesting book Independent Reading Inside the Box by Lisa Donohue aimed at primary school teachers about strategies to enhance students' comprehension, language and thinking skills while they are reading.

The box refers to a one page template with 8 boxes in a table, each with a useful strategy to "dig deeper" into reading.

You can read the whole book online for free, and download each chapter and the templates as PDFs. Preview the entire book

These sort of activities do not take the place of pure reading for pleasure, the FVR (Free Voluntary Reading) which Stephen Krashen talks about, and there is a risk when a book is too analysed that it loses all spontaneity, but we know that the key to becoming a life-long reader is beyond decoding to make meaning, and with comprehension come the rewards of reading...

Independent reading inside the box by Lisa Donohue, Pembroke 2008 ISBN: 978-155138-225-8

Improving outcomes for Maori

One of the JuLS goals is "to develop shared understandings of literacy teaching and learning, particularly in the first three years at school, including the knowledge and use of appropriate resources, and how Maori and Pasifika students learn (emphasis added).

Here is a useful resource to explore this aspect, shared by Glenys.

Teachers as learners: Improving outcomes for Māori and Pasifika students through inquiry (Published September 2009)

http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/Curriculum-stories/Case-studies/Inquiry

These learning materials are primarily for teachers and school leaders, and they may also be useful for others in education. Their purpose is to illustrate how teachers have used an inquiry approach to teaching to become more culturally responsive and to improve outcomes for their Māori and Pasifika students.

The teachers’ stories illustrate a variety of contexts and experiences: some involve teachers relatively new to the profession, while others show very experienced teachers taking a fresh look at their practice. Whatever their situation, all the teachers have willingly shared the challenges and highlights of their investigations in order that other teachers and school leaders may use them as triggers for their own inquiries.

I found Learning Story #6 really engaging and inspiring - check it out...

Using family stories in learning about cultural identity and cultural transmission How can I use Māori and Pasifika students' past experiences, knowledge, and culture to enhance their achievement and learning?
http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/Curriculum-stories/Case-studies/Inquiry/Learning-stories/Story-6

PhotoStory software

PhotoStory is wonderful free software which enables you to turn a collection of digital photos into a "video" complete with your own narration, text and music background. It is lots of fun and very easy to use... It could be a great tool for the classroom with students of all ages for a variety of purposes, and in the library maybe for doing book reviews ? It could be a good resource to promote to families in the school newsletter too perhaps ?

Here is the website http://tiny.cc/Photostory610

There is a guide to making a video using a single photo which is also very effective, if a bit more complex ! http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/photostory/tips/create.mspx