Literacy Now

The International Reading Association gave awards to many state and local councils and affiliate organizations from around the world during the ceremony on Sunday, April 29, at the IRA 57th Annual Convention in Chicago. Below is a list of some of those awards.

Exemplary Reading Program Award Winners

The following schools were given these awards through their state councils.

Cullman City Primary School, Cullman, AL, Patricia R. Culpepper, Principal

Fountain Lake School District, Hot Springs, AR

Woodrow Elementary School, Modesto, CA, Vickie Briscoe, Principal

Staffordville School, Staffordville, CT, Dr. Maureen Ryan, Principal

Wilder Elementary School, Wilder, ID, Jeff Dillon, Principal

Augustus H. Burley Elementary School, Chicago, IL, Barbara Kent, Principal

Maize South Elementary School, Wichita, KS, Tyler Ewert, Principal

A. A. Songy Kindergarten Center, Luling, LA, Claire P. Brauninger, Principal

Wicomico Early Learning Center, Salisbury, MD, Maria Marshall, Principal

Anna Ware Jackson School, Plainville, MA, Anne M. Houle, Principal

Burke Elementary School, Kansas City, MO, Deborah Fortner, Principal

Pringle Elementary School, Salem, OR, Linda Dougherty, Principal

Elizabeth Scott Elementary School, Chester, VA, Joan Temple, Principal

 

Local Council Community Service Awards

First Place

Jefferson County Council, Arkansas, Susan Bitely, President

Second Place

Moore County Council, North Carolina, Mary Ellen Skidmore, President

Advocacy Awards

Connecticut Reading Association, Marilyn Scanlan-White, Legislative Chair

Illinois Reading Council, Mike Ellerman, Legislative Chair

Louisiana Reading Association, Gerri Settoon, Legislative Chair

State of Maryland IRA Council, Dr. Suzanne Clewell, Legislative Chair

Michigan Reading Association, Cynthia Clingman, Legislative Chair

Oklahoma Reading Association, Pamela Hammon, Legislative Chair

Virginia State Reading Association, Marilyn Schempf, Legislative Chair

 

Membership Achievement Awards

Gold

Alabama Reading Association

Alberta Provincial Council

British Columbia Literacy Council

Diamond State Reading Association

Georgia Reading Association

Idaho Council

Illinois Reading Council

Iowa Reading Association

Kansas Reading Association

Manitoba Reading Association

Michigan Reading Association

Minnesota Reading Association

Mississippi Reading Association

North of Sixty Council

Oklahoma Reading Association

Saskatchewan Reading Council

South Carolina State Council

Tennessee Reading Association

Utah Council

Vermont Council on Reading

Silver

North Carolina Reading Association

Virginia State Reading Association

Wisconsin State Reading Association

Bronze

Indiana State Reading Association

Ontario Reading Association

State of Maryland IRA Council

 

Student Membership Achievement Awards

Gold

Massachusetts Reading Association

Ohio Council

Rhode Island State Council

South Dakota State Council

Utah Council

 

IRA also congratulates the state councils who were given Awards of Excellence and the hundreds of local councils that were named Honor Councils, whether it was their first year or their 30th year! Read about these award winners in the article entitled "2012 IRA Award of Excellence and Honor Council Recipients" on Reading Today Online. 

 

This article is reprinted from the June/July 2012 issue of Reading Today. IRA members can read the interactive digital version of the magazine here. Nonmembers: join today! 

 

 

 

As 2011-2012 Kentucky Reading Association (KRA) President Cindy Parker began her transition into summer, she took a few moments to share an update with us about their activities and acolades. 

1. Are you especially proud of any of your council’s projects?

This past year, all of the local councils received Honor Council status from the International Reading Association (IRA). Our local councils have worked hard to increase both membership and involvement of their members. Several councils made significant increases. Sessions to engage "new" teachers and future teachers through local workshops, focusing on professional development topics such as the Common Core State Standards, Response to Intervention, and effective writing strategies for teachers, led by department of education consultants and education cooperative staff, who are also KRA members, have been well attended and well received. 

Additionally, we are proud of our partnership with the First Lady, Jane Beshear, and partner agencies to support the Kentucky Literacy Celebration week as well as a statewide summer reading initiative. KRA also supports the Kentucky Bluegrass Award, where students get to vote for their favorite books in K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12. A luncheon is held at the annual conference to recognize the winners, and libraries can apply for awards of sets of the books. 

2. What are the benefits of joining your council?

Our mission is "To be a Voice for Literacy" and we have a large and organized council that supports teachers, faculty, families, and communities. Our organization supports and promotes literacy with multiple organizations; our local council events encourage collaboration and networks; our annual state conference also provides professional development and keynotes from national experts and researchers to keep our membership up-to-date and informed. KRA also sponsors several mini-grants to support classroom teachers and libraries.

3. Are there any future projects in store for your council?

This year we went online with our Kentucky Reading Journal and plan to continue this as a resource for membership. We are also looking at setting up online book studies and virtual sessions leading up to our state conference to build enthusiasm and interest in the practices featured by our keynote speakers. 

4. How does one join your council?

Membership information is available at www.ky/. 

5. Is there a website, newsletter, or another way to find out more information about your council? Is there a person that prospective members can contact? 

Our website has online archives of our newsletter. 

Kentucky Reading Association board members

 

 

Lynda Griblin, President of the California Reading Association (CRA), took some time during the busy end of the school year to share the news about her state council with Reading Today. As well as preparing for their annual Professional Development Institute in October, council members are working on international and local projects. 

1. Are you especially proud of any of your council’s projects? 

Each year our council contributes to literacy programs in developing countries. This past two years we donated funds to a program in Tanzania which provides books for children. 

2. What are the benefits of joining your council? 

There are numerous benefits for joining the California Reading Association. First and foremost our members have a network of educators and experts that can directly assist in classroom literacy needs. Through local councils, members attend workshops and presentations by authors and educators in the field of literacy. Annually CRA presents a Professional Development Institute featuring nationally recognized keynote speakers and numerous breakout sessions that address current issues and trends in literacy instruction. 

3. Are there any future projects in store for your council? 

We are currently in the final phases of planning for the 2012 Professional Development Institute which is being held at Town and Country in San Diego on October 19 and 20. Our keynote speakers include Lori Oczkus and Taffy Raphael. We are very excited as each of our breakout sessions offer two opportunities for attendees to learn more about the Common Core State Standards. We are also in the final planning stages developing a professional lending library that local councils can incorporate into their programs for the year. We understand that in tight budget years many educators are not able to travel to our annual Professional Development Institute. Through the professional lending library local councils will have a rich variety of options to offer their members.

4. How does one join your council?

Joining our council is quite easy. One can join through their local councils, which many people do, especially during local council events. People can also join through the California Reading Association website.

5. Is there a website, newsletter, or another way to find out more information about your council? Is there a person that prospective members can contact? 

People can find out more about the California Reading Association via our website, www.californiareads.org. We are excited as our Website is currently going through major renovations with a launch date towards the end of this summer. 

 

Literacy professionals attend a regional leadership event held in Redding, California.

by Michelle Commeyras

In 2010 I began volunteering on the Kenya Reading Project and in 2011 on the Reading Sierre Leone Project. I volunteer with a Canadian nonprofit organization that collaborates with local organizations in Africa to design, deliver and evaluate literacy programs. I have become fascinated with the apparent explosion of interest in developing early reading education on the continent. This interest is related to U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)’s new Education Strategy to improve readings skills for 100 million children in primary grades by 2015. 

School Attendance and Reading Performance

In 2010 UNESCO reported that the out of school population of 21 million in sub-Saharan Africa had been reduced by about 13 million (Van Der Gaag & Adams, 2010). With the improvement of school enrollment came questions about what were students learning. Results from large-scale assessments of reading literacy became a cause for concern. For example, the results from the Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ) of 2007 showed that on average 64.2% of grade six students in 14 countries were able to read for meaning, engage in interpretive, inferential, analytical and critical reading (Hungi, Makuwa, Ross, Saito, Dolata, Cappelle, Paviot & Vellien, 2010). Yet performance varied significantly by country as illustrated on the following chart. In some countries there were many grade six students still at the pre-reading, emergent or basic levels. 

Table 1. Reading Performance on SACMEQ 2007

One of the significant initiatives has been to find ways of measuring reading attainment in the first three grades of primary school. The most widely used test is the Early Grade Reading Assessment developed by RTI International with funding from the USAID and the World Bank. It is a series of subtests some of which are modeled after the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills known to most educators in the U.S.A. as DIBELS. World-wide, EGRA has been used in more than 50 countries and 70 languages (Gove & Wetterberg, 2011). In sub-Saharan Africa is has been administered in 18 countries using whatever the language of instruction was in the participating schools. 

Languages and Learning to Read

Africa is a language rich continent. There are thousands of languages spoken and being able to speak several languages is common. One significant factor in learning to read is the language. Beginning readers are likely to be faced with different challenges when reading different languages. Learning to read requires knowledge of the basic units of the writing system. Those basic units differ across languages.

Each country has a language policy that stipulates what language will be used for instruction in primary and secondary schooling. In some countries the language of instruction differs from lower primary to upper primary to post primary school.  In the following chart some of the different configurations are illustrated.  In some African countries primary school is taught in a Lingua Franca like Kiswahili. In other countries students begin learning in their mother tongue like Shona or Ndebele in Zimbabwe. In many countries students and teachers are expected to change to a colonial language for upper and post primary education. Less often the language of instruction remains the same across school levels (i.e. Kiswahili in Tanzania).

Table 2. Examples of Variations in the Language of Instruction by Country

In Sierre Leone the lingua franca is Krio, but it is not used as the language of instruction. Yet the teachers I have worked with readily admit to using it to communicate with their students. It has been documented by researchers that while government policies stipulate a language of instruction there is plenty of code-switching (code alteration) occurring in classrooms where that language is foreign to students (Rubagumya, 1998). Teachers who use more than one language while teaching are engaged in something difficult and complex. To date there is not enough research on effective bilingual pedagogy (Clegg & Afitska, 2011). The collective wisdom is that the use of mother tongue or native language as the medium of learning and instruction improves the learning of official/foreign/colonial language as a subject of learning.

There are complicated tensions involved in getting agreement on a language of instruction across all those with a stake in public education. Which language leads to higher education? Which language preserves indigenous identity and culture? Which language facilitates learning to read and write? Which language has books and other curriculum materials? What are the economic costs and benefits of the language of instruction?  

Learning to read involves learning how one’s writing system encodes one’s spoken language. Each writing systems has its basic units. In alphabetic languages the basic unit is letters. In syllabaries it is syllables and in logographic scripts it is morphemes (Jukes, Vagh & Kim, 2006). Early reading instruction must take into account language differences with regard to orthographic features, subcomponents and pragmatics. English, French and Portuguese are three languages of instruction in Africa that are difficult with regard to decoding (Seymour, Aro & Erskine, 2003). English being the most difficult because “[i]n order to decode the most frequent 3000 monosyllabic English words at the level of the rime, a child needs to learn mappings between approximately 600 different orthographic patterns and 400 phonological rimes, far more than would be needed if the child could simply learn how to map 26 letters onto 26 phonemes” (Ziegler & Goswami, 2006 p. 431). The Early Grade Reading Assessment has a reading nonsense subtest. This makes sense for orthographically opaque languages like English but not for orthographically transparent languages like Kiswahili? It has been shown that children can read decode Kiswahili words that are not in their oral vocabulary. This is similar to reading nonsense words in English. 

Fluency rates are meaningful at the word level in some languages (English) and at the syllable level in other languages (Italian). Assessing reading fluency differs across languages because of word length. Agglutinative languages like Kiswahili have some long words and it takes beginning readers more time to read long words. For example the English word “food” is one syllable but in Swahili it is “chakula” a three syllable word. In some cases one English word such as “noon” calls for several words in Kiswahili “Saa sita mchana.” Variations such as these among languages present difficulties in developing internationally oriented assessments like the Early Grade Reading Assessment which includes subtests: number of letters read per minute and reading a connected passed of one minute. Comparisons of reading fluency across languages are recognized as being problematic. 

It is important to remember that most of the research on teaching reading has been conducted in developed countries with European languages (Trudell, B. & Schroeder, L., 2007). While English has become the language of globalization it cannot be used as a generalized model for literacy teaching because its orthography if far more complicated than that of many other languages (e.g. Bantu languages). Teaching methods with regard to phonics and decoding need to be adjusted to the specific characteristics of a language’s writing system.  Studies on European languages have found that children learn to decode more quickly languages with transparent orthographies (Ziegler & Goswami, 2006). Research needs to be conducted on teaching methods in sub-Saharan Africa where children are learning to read in both transparent and opaque orthographies.

Training Educators in Africa

I am learning that those like me who are invited as literacy experts from North America and Europe need information about the realities of teachers’ classrooms. Here are some of the questions that have been of concern to me in planning trainer and teacher workshops. I have continually considered how reading and writing lessons can be conducted in crowded classrooms with few resources.

• Which reading materials are available (textbooks, children’s literature, environmental print, teacher-made charts, and posters, etc.)?
• Which writing materials (blank exercise books, loose papers, sand) are available to the teacher and pupils? 
• Which writing implements (pencils, chalk, markers, crayons, sticks) are available to the teacher and pupils? 
• Is there room for the teacher to move among students to show illustrations when reading aloud from a children’s book?
• Does the physical size and layout of the classroom have space for literacy centers and other small group work or is the teacher limited to whole class instruction?

I have learned that teacher development projects need to involve those from outside the school who make decisions that affect the school. For example, in the Kenya Reading Project it has been important to have the Area Education Officer involved because he has been able to ensure that teachers receiving the training were not transferred to schools outside the project. He attended the three initial workshops for trainers and the three subsequent workshops for 90 teachers. Also in Kenya we had two quality assurance officers attend the Train the Trainer workshops. Their presence was important because they go to the schools to conduct evaluations.  In the role as evaluators they need to know what new teaching methodologies and materials are being introduced. The situation in Sierre Leone was different because we are not working with government schools. Rather the focus is on schools created by rural communities where the teachers are considered by the government to be “untrained and unqualified.” There is no official oversight or economic responsibility to those schools by the government.

I think it is crucial that there be ongoing support to teachers and their head masters between workshops. Providing an interactive workshop with opportunities to try out new methods of teaching is a starting point. Those are seeds that will only grow roots in classrooms and schools if someone with literacy teaching expertise comes on a regular basis to work side by side with teachers on how to implement the new teaching methods. This is a big challenge for fiscal and logistical reasons. Just getting to the schools can be difficult and sometimes impossible in the rainy season when dirt roads are flooded. Also the availability of those who have the expertise to support the teachers’ implementation of new teaching methodologies is often limited because they are volunteers or otherwise busy in their places of employment. 

Here are videos about teacher workshops in Kenya and Sierre Leone:

Sierre Leone:

Tennessee’s Cheatham County Reading Council (CCRC) honored student authors from across the county on April 24 at the Pegram Elementary School library.

Each spring, the CCRC invites students from schools in Cheatham County to submit books that they have written, illustrated, and “published” (covered and bound to look like published books). Acceptable literature genres include original tales, personal narratives, fables, allegories, parables, legends, biographical sketches, and tall tales. The program is open to children of all ages. “Books may be selected from any classroom in a school system grades K-12,” says former CCRC Celebrate Literacy chairperson Charles Wallace. 

This year students submitted 138 original books to the program judges. Books were judged using a rubric designed by the Tennessee Reading Association (TRA), a state council of the International Reading Association (IRA). 

After local evaluation, CCRC selected the top 14 books to be sent to the TRA for evaluation on the state level. 

Winning Authors 

Rachel Welsh, an eighth-grader at Cheatham Middle School, received a gold medal. She has submitted an entry each year since she was in second grade. 

Silver medal winners were Lauren Moore, Megan Rich, Will Collier, Maranda Huffman, and Echo O’Connor from Pegram Elementary School. The silver medal winners from Ashland City Elementary School were Aviana Gordon, Rachel Sherman, Landon Hunter, Christian DePriest, and Jose Matos. Harpeth Middle School silver medal winners were Jenna Williams, Liam Miles, and Abigail Warren. 

Student authors that did not win a medal were presented with a certificate for their participation.

Pictured are 10 of the 14 winners from the county's elementary and middle schools. 

 

History of the Event 

In 1983, IRA invited state councils to “Celebrate Literacy” within their states. TRA asked Dr. Elizabeth Brashears of Middle Tennessee State University to develop Tennessee’s plan for celebrating literacy. Brashears envisioned a program for Tennessee’s children in grades K-12 to fully create and publish their own books right down to the sturdy binding.

In the spring of 1984, local TRA councils were invited to submit seven books to the state, and Olympic-style medals (gold, silver, and bronze) were awarded.

However, Brashears disliked using the word “contest” to describe the program because her ultimate goal was to celebrate every student who participated. Therefore, each local council was to hold its own event so that authors would be recognized for their work. 

About the Cheatham County Reading Council

CCRC President Mary Ellen doValle, an Education Specialist at Ashland City Elementary School, says that the council participates in Read Across America and Ages and Stages, an early child development project. Cheatham County Reading Council also recently received TRA Community Service Project Grants. Cheatham County Reading Council prepared and gave a PowerPoint presentation in collaboration with the county’s Family Involvement Coordinator that emphasized the importance of reading from pre-birth to death. The PowerPoint was presented at the “Ages and Stages” program which focuses on birth to 4 years of age. To further promote interest in reading among the young the council had appearances by the Cat in the Hat and Kermit, the Frog. The council provided the costumes for these characters. Contact Mary Ellen doValle to join or for more information. 

About the Tennessee Reading Association 

The TRA has 14 local councils and is a member council of IRA. The Association offers membership scholarships, grants, and award opportunities, including the TRA State Conference Scholarship, the Academic Scholarship, Community Service Project Grants, Reading Improvement Grants, Support Storytelling Grants, Celebrate Literacy, Newspaper in Education, Recognition of outstanding literacy professionals, and Honor Councils. Members receive three online newsletters each year providing them information on local and state issues and professional literacy articles. Members also receive the annual TRA peer-reviewed professional journal, Tennessee Reading Teacher. TRA hosts an annual conference, and members receive discounts on registration fees. The 2012 conference is December 2 to 4 in Murfreesboro. Their new website at www.tnreads.org features information and registration access to the conference, past journal and newsletter issues, committee information and forms, and application forms for scholarships and grants. Contact President Kathy Brashears to join or for more information.