Literacy Now

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!

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by Elizabeth Bleacher

The deadline for the International Reading Association (IRA) Regie Routman Teacher Recognition Grant is November 15. The award, a US$2,500 grant, is given to an outstanding mainstream, elementary classroom teacher dedicated to developing reading and writing skills within students.

Potential nominees need to be IRA members and teach at schools where at least 60% of students are eligible for free or reduced lunch. Teachers must also be able to demonstrate that they are devoted to improving the teaching and learning of reading and writing across the curriculum in grades K-6.

Teachers will be expected to provide a proposal outlining their plans for the grant. Only educators with original, creative proposals will be considered. The grant may not be used to purchase pre-existing commercial programs. A budget outline, personal statement, and three letters of recommendation are also required.

The award is supported by literacy coach, teacher, and author Regie Routman who has been a member of the IRA for 35 years. Routman’s informative Literacy and Learning Lessons from a Longtime Teacher is an excellent guidebook for K- 12 educators, new and old. The book contains 100 literacy learning lessons that serve as inspirational frameworks to raise achievement and enjoyment in the classroom.

This past September Routman joined a group of her colleagues in hosting an IRA Literacy and Leadership Institute for educators committed to making lasting changes in literacy education. The institute offered a uniquely intimate chance to interact with professionals in improving literacy in schools. Routman will be conducting another institute from January 28 to 29 in Charlotte, North Carolina. Registration for the event is currently open and the form can be found at the IRA Literacy and Leadership Institute website.

Dawn Beach, a fifth-grade teacher at John I. Meister Elementary School in Hobart, Indiana, was the 2012 recipient of the IRA Regie Routman Teacher Recognition Grant. As an educator, Beach encourages her students to grow academically, socially, and emotionally by focusing on goal setting and developing life skills. In order to promote creative learning, Beach used the grant money to establish a professional puppet residency.

For more information on the IRA Regie Routman Teacher Recognition Grant, visit the International Reading Association’s website. Those interested can also visit Regie Routman’s personal website.

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

Research has found that teachers are the most important contributors to students’ academic success. Since there is evidence that teachers play a critical role in the accomplishments of their students, government programs should be reworked to facilitate teacher growth. The International Reading Association’s newly developed Universal Principles: The Essential Role of the Teacher in Classrooms, School, and Society is meant to enable that process. These principles were developed by a group of teachers working at all levels of education.

The Universal Principles are meant to serve as a comprehensive framework for teacher education and support. A complete version of Universal Principles: The Essential Role of the Teacher in Classrooms, School, and Society can be found at the IRA website. Additionally, IRA is seeking reader suggestions regarding the Universal Principles until November 1. All comments and recommendations can be e-mailed to the IRA.

Capable and dedicated teachers ensure that their students experience academic success at the classroom level, but they also ensure that their students will become literate, well-adjusted members of society. The Universal Principles are broken into three separate sections that effectively outline the role of teachers and the support they need. The three sections are: teachers are dedicated professionals, teachers need adequate support and access to sufficient resources, and teachers are intensely committed to student success.

IRA endorses these proposed principles as essential for every teacher worldwide. In order to create schools where students can thrive, government programs need to consider teachers and their role in students’ lives. Highly qualified and effective teachers are critical to classroom success and the academic development of students.

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

by Elizabeth Bleacher

The International Reading Association (IRA) Paul A. Witty Short Story Award is given to the author of an original story for children. The story should function as a literary standard for works being published in children’s periodicals. The award, a US$1,000 stipend, is meant to encourage authors to write engaging stories for children that will help promote interest in creative writing. Applications for the award are due by November 15.

Since the award seeks to encourage creative writing in periodicals, the story being nominated must have been published within a children’s magazine. Additionally, a story is only eligible for nomination in the year in which it was first published. In other words, any story published in a young reader periodical in 2012 can be nominated for this award cycle.

Stories submitted for consideration may be nonfiction or fiction, but all work must be original. Retellings of myths or legends will not be considered. Ideal stories create believable worlds, present information truthfully, and engage young readers. They should also offer a standard by which readers can measure the quality of other writing.

Subcommittee members, IRA members, authors, and publishers may all enter stories for consideration, but publishers are limited to three stories per publication. Copies of the publication containing the nominated story should be sent to each committee member for review. Shipment information will be distributed after an application form has been submitted.

Brenda Moore received the award in 2012 for her story “Beyond the Call of Duty” published by Cricket Magazine. Moore prefers to write nonfiction accounts of people and important events in history. Her favorite aspect of writing nonfiction is the extensive research that her topics require. She also likes the challenge of making history interesting for children.

More information about the application process can be found on the International Reading Association’s website.

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

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).