Literacy Now

by Catherine Kelly

In January 2013, the Minnesota Academy of Reading will host its third annual “Policy Issues in Literacy: Implications for Educators an Era of Common Core Standards” event. This symposium brings together legislators, Board of Teaching members, higher education faculty, K-12 teachers, and literacy advocates to discuss issues related to teacher preparation and professional development. The focus of this year’s event will be on preparing teachers to meet the needs of Minnesota’s K-12 students in an era of the Common Core State Standards.

The Minnesota Academy of Reading (MAR), a local council of the Minnesota Reading Association, was founded in 1974 with the purpose of sharing professional ideas in literacy instruction, consultation, and evaluation, as well as engaging in service activities. The organization was chartered by the International Reading Association, and in the early years of the organization, held weekend professional meetings and workshops, as well as presenting an institute at the IRA convention in Miami.

Though MAR was less active in the 1990s, the organization reemerged in 2005 to provide a network for educators interested in policies related to pre-service teacher licensure, standards for reading teachers, and research on effective professional development. This work involved a collaboration of the recipients of a Bush Foundation grant and faculty from over 40 institutions as they aligned their courses with updated Board of Teaching competencies. Every two years, the Minnesota Academy of Reading honors a reading professional who has made significant contributions to the field of literacy education in Minnesota and beyond.

The Minnesota Academy of Reading is looking to network with other state councils engaged in similar work around literacy policies, effective preparation of literacy teachers, and improved literacy instruction for K-12 students. If your local council is interested in networking with MAR, please contact MAR Co-President Elect Catherine Kelly.

Catherine Kelly is an Assistant Professor of Education at St. Catherine University in St. Paul Minnesota, the Secretary of the MRA Executive Board, and Co-President Elect of MAR. She can be contacted at cmkelly@stkate.edu.

by Elizabeth Bleacher

The 8th Pan-African Reading for All (PARFA) Conference will be held from July 9 to August 2, 2013, at the University of Nairobi in Kenya. The conference’s theme will be Literacy for All: Leading the way to Literacy Excellence, with special attention given to innovative literacy strategies and techniques that have proven to have positive impacts on literacy throughout Africa. The conference’s goal is to identify what teaching structures need to be developed or strengthened to promote literacy both nationally and internationally.

Proposal submissions for the 2013 conference are due by December 31, 2012. Submissions must include the official proposal form. Additionally, all participants will be required to pay a conference registration fee, whether they are presenting or not. The registration fee is not due with proposals and should be submitted at a later date with a separate form. The fee for participants from continents other than Africa is US$250. Participants from Africa are asked to pay US$150.

Presentations will be accepted as individual papers, colloquia, workshops, poster sessions, and films/documentaries. Aside from meeting the general conference objectives, all proposals need to fall under one of the ten sub-themes of the conference.

Those sub-themes are:

• Literacy and Early Childhood Education;
• Literacy Across the Curriculum;
• Literacy, Information Centers, and Technology; 
• Literacy and Community Participation;
• Literacy and Language of Education;
• Literacy Instruction and Assessment;
• Literacy, Health, and Human Rights;
• Literacy, Publishing, and Materials Development;
• Innovations in Literacy Instruction; and
• Multicultural Literacies.

Colloquia will be given two hours, and workshops will be given one full hour. Individual papers, poster sessions, and documentaries will be given a half hour for presentations as well as questions. For this reason, films and documentaries cannot exceed twenty minutes.

Past conferences have proven successful in creating and implementing strategies to promote literacy and have left lasting impacts on host regions and participants. Much of this success can be attributed to the quality of the presentations given at the conferences and the literacy teaching methods that have developed as a result.

More information about the application process can be found at the International Reading Association website.

Elizabeth Bleacher is the strategic communications intern at the International Reading Association. 

Dr. Patricia A. Edwards, an International Reading Association (IRA) Past President and Distinguished Professor of Language and Literacy in the Teacher Education Department at Michigan State University, presented the keynote speech Expanding Opportunities to Address Urban Illiteracy in the U.S. at the World Literacy Summit at Oxford University, United Kingdom, upon the invitation of the World Literacy Foundation’s Board of Directors.

The public can access her PowerPoint presentation on the World Literacy Summit website.

The World Literacy Foundation is an independent not-for-profit charitable body that is committed to providing effective programs to address literacy needs around the world. The Summit is a global literacy initiative that has been developed in partnership with Oxford University and a number of key literacy groups and experts. The Summit brought together over 400 key delegates such as Ministers of Education, NGOs, literacy experts, literacy practitioners, educators, and key literacy leaders from around the world.

Dr. Edwards was the 2010-2011 IRA President. She recently won the Edward B. Fry Book Award from the Literacy Research Association (LRA) for Change Is Gonna Come, co-authored by Gwendolyn Thompson McMillon and Jennifer D. Turner, and co-published by the International Reading Association and Teachers College Press. She just released the book Bridging Literacy and Equity: The Essential Guide to Social Equity Teaching with Althier Lazar and Gwendolyn Thompson McMillon (Teachers College Press). The three authors wrote an article about social equity teaching for the August/September 2012 issue of Reading Today, which is available for Association members to read online.

 

 

 

by Margaret Muthiga, Member of the IRA Teacher Advisory Panel

The Reading Club at our Kilimo Primary School in Kenya organizes Orphans Day once a year. This year was no exception. On 1st June 2012 the reading club visited Haven of Hope children’s home. Their time table was tight. The main objective was to “take reading further.”

The children’s home was founded by a former student of our school. The idea of starting the orphanage came to her when she picked up an infant left along the rail line. Though young and not married she took the challenge of keeping the baby when the security requested her to keep the child. From then on many babies have been brought to her. She now has 35 kids.

Every year we invite orphans to our school. We organize them according to their ages and give them different activities to do, from reading to games. This year we visited them, and it was fantastic! We taught the kindergarten children how to read and play reading games. In the reading competition for grade one, some children read and won gifts while the ones who never won cried and vowed to win the next time.

Listening in Sadness

When we learned how the children came to be at the orphanage, it was a sad moment. One could hear a pin drop—it was all ears and eyes glued to the little boys and girls as the story unfolded. One of the children whose parents died of AIDS, leaving him and his two sisters to fend for themselves, said, “I don’t know why God took both my parents and later took my grandmother as well. What would become of us?” he asked.

He then went on to explain that “My uncle has taken all of my parents’ savings and our beautiful home and lives there with his family. May be God had a purpose for us being left by those we loved, and maybe that is a lesson to you to always love and obey your parents.”

Another child was found thrown in a pit latrine immediately after she was born. Her cry attracted children who were passing there on their way to school who then went to the police and reported. The police removed the infant and took her to hospital and later registered the child with Haven of Hope children’s home. She is named Angel and she is two months old now. We thank God she survived.

Every year when we celebrate Orphans Day, we remember these children as some of the persons who don’t get access to reading books and other basic needs. Our children always go out of their way to extend their small hands to reach out to the needy young and old. Apart from helping the orphans, the children and I guide and counsel the sick, especially the infected children. Children also carry extra plates to feed those less fortunate.

The orphans also drew pictures to show their gratitude to Kilimo Primary Reading Club. We donated foodstuff, clothes, story books, and drawing material.

Making Winners of the Apparently Ordinary

The Reading Club has helped the children to improve their academic performance and reading skills. One of the school rules for joining the club requires students to read four story books and then write the same story in their own language to the Kiswahili or English teacher. Membership motivates the pupils to compete in classes by reading fluently so as to be appointed as a class librarian, which automatically gives you the ticket to join the reading club. This activity has made it even possible for the school to continue leading in the national examination every year in the district.

The task of the excellent teacher is to stimulate apparently ordinary people to unusual effort. The tough problem is not in identifying winners but it is in making winners out of ordinary people. May God bless TAP and IRA as we endeavor to do what we know is best for the children in our classrooms.

A hug is the shortest distance between friends, and each child in our classes is such a friend. I leave you with a final thought from the Kilimo Primary School Reading Club: “POVERTY IS THE WORST FORM OF VIOLENCE.”

In the photographs below, students in The Reading Club play reading and writing games with the orphans, read books to them, and receive instructions from Teacher Margaret.

Margaret Muthiga is a senior teacher at Kilimo Primary School in Nakuru County, Kenya, mmuthigaus@yahoo.com.

This article is an addendum to an article from the August/September 2012 issue of Reading Today. IRA members can read the interactive digital version of the magazine here. Nonmembers: join today!

October's featured council is the Mississippi Reading Association (MRA) in the Magnolia State. MRA Past President Stacy Reeves took a few moments to share what is so valuable about the diversity and enthusiam of MRA members with Reading Today Online.

MRA is a Kaleidoscope of Literacy Professionals: we have very different backgrounds while holding various titles and positions including classroom teachers, university and college professors, administrators, retired educators, preservice teachers, community leaders, assistant teachers, AmeriCorps tutors and trainers, and others. We are united by the belief that literacy benefits all people in our communities, our state, our nation, and our world.

We are a small group, but when we come together, unified in one voice for the progression of literacy, we are mighty in force. We lead by example in our classes, our teaching environments, our communities, and our centers of learning.

We are joined in agreement in the Mississippi Reading Association and we belong to our local reading councils, too; additionally, we guide our schools and districts to success, and many of us serve in various ways for the MS Department of Education, for national groups, and for international groups across a variety of subjects and areas. One of our coalescent factors is concern for the betterment of others through literacy teaching and learning.

We know that our state has far to go, but we also know the riches that it holds and that there are many resources which have not yet been tapped. We are not finished leading students to the treasures found in reading and the resources available in communicating through writing, speaking, and listening. We support IRA and one way we do that is through our 2012 State Conference titled, “Reading in 3-D” to be held December 2-5. Information which may be accessed at www.ms/. For more information about Mississippi Reading Association, please contact Stacy.Reeves@usm.edu, past president 2012-2013.

Pictured at the 2010 conference in Biloxi, MS, at the Beau Rivage Resort: an AmeriCorps tutor, Pat Ross (president 2010-2011); Janice Cate (treasurer for past several years), Anne Matheny (president 2012-2013), Phyllis Armstrong (Pine Belt Reading Council, Hattiesburg, MS), Stacy Reeves (past president 2012-2013), author Jon Scieszka, Stephanie Peets (membership director for past several years), Tracie Bernard (secretary 2010-2013), and Lauren Hutto (president of Pine Belt Reading Council, Hattiesburg, MS).