Literacy Now

Putting Books to Work sessions at ILA 2016 Conference & Exhibits give a unique opportunity to hear about authors’ inspirations for school-friendly titles. Based on the popular Literacy Daily series by the same name, these sessions focus on providing practical classroom strategies for one spotlight book per author. During these sessions, attendees will be able to interact with the authors and moderators to share ways they’ve used the books in their classroom, as well as the challenges they encountered.

The following are overviews given by the moderators as to what to expect from each of the sessions, broken down by age level. And don’t forget to note the time of the “Lit Lovers Meetups” facilitated by session moderators at the Age of Literacy Learning Lounge in the Exhibit Hall where book lovers will get the chance to chat and share favorite titles.

Deborah Wooten, Putting Books to Work: Primary
(Saturday, July 9, 11:00 AM–12:00 PM)

“Teacher, Teacher, What Do You See, Two New Picture Books Looking At Me!”

Meet Laura Vaccaro Seeger and her current book I Used to Be Afraid and Michael Sampson with his latest book Listen to Our World. Each picture book has complementary interactive literacy and art activities.

I Used To Be Afraid is a reflective concept picture book that helps students face their fears and discover ways to perceive them in a positive perspective problem-solving approach. Seeger’s bold illustrations capture students’ attention along with the ingenious way she incorporates her die cuts that foreshadow the book's spirit of overcoming fears.

Sampson’s Listen to Our World, illustrated by Melissa Sweet and co-authored with Bill Martin Jr. before his passing in 2004, will have students journeying around the globe and singing the sounds of 11 animals from six continents. This award-winning author will showcase his new book about habitats along with the thrill of onomatopoeia that highlight the language of the animals. Students can easily develop literacy skills while nurturing their understandings and curiosities about geography, social studies, and science.

The engaging activities presented in this session will deepen and enlighten both of these wonderful books. And Laura Vaccaro Seeger and Michael Sampson will be giving away a limited number of free autographed copies to attendees.

The Primary Lit Lovers Meetup will be Saturday 2:00 PM–3:00 PM at the Age of Literacy Learning Lounge.

Sandra K. Athans, Putting Books to Work: Mid-Level
(Sunday, July 10, 8:00 AM–9:00 AM)

What does a silver sea and a super-sized squid have in common? Beyond a little alliteration, both are sure to lure you to the session where Grace Lin and Candace Fleming will share ideas about how these topics—central components in their new books—can be used in your classroom to captivate students and kick up your instruction!

Lin lovers will delight in When the Sea Turned Silver—a masterpiece companion to Where the Mountain Meets the Moon and Starry River of the Sky. This extraordinarily written new fantasy adventure includes some familiar faces yet also introduces cherishable new characters who entice readers along on another spectacular quest.

Fleming fanatics will flock to Giant Squid, a beautifully written and illustrated up-close account of this rare and elusive creature that will captivate readers in its unveiling of this lesser-known sea creature. Fleming will also spotlight Presenting Buffalo Bill, her new biography of this legendary Wild West wonder.

Both award-winning authors will share ways in which these new books can be used in your classroom.

The Mid-Level Lit Lovers Meetup will be Sunday 1:00 PM–2:00 PM at the Age of Literacy Learning Lounge.

Mary Cotillo and Erin O’Leary (The Crazy Reading Ladies), Putting Books to Work: Young Adult
(Monday, July 11, 8:00 AM–9:00 AM)

There’s a lot about growing up that we wish we could forget, and as teachers, we often have to live our mistakes again with our students. How we wish our kids would just listen to us when we see them headed down the wrong path and know that freight train of consequence is coming right for them! Jack Gantos’ autobiographical novel The Trouble in Me forces readers to reflect on the choices we make and how our “friends” have the power to change our lives. Told in the straight-forward, no-nonsense style that has made him a YA favorite (remember Joey Pigza?), Gantos tells the ugly truth of being a follower.

Salt to the Sea is the newest must-read from Between Shades of Grey author Ruta Sepetys. In her latest work, Sepetys opens our eyes once again to one of the greatest yet long-forgotten tragedies of World War II. History is beautifully, skillfully wrapped into a story so engaging and accessible that students won’t even realize how much they’ve learned until it’s too late. Told in four voices of relatable teenagers, this page-turning gem of a book provides an extraordinary opportunity for cross-curricular collaboration as well as serving as an adolescent-friendly gateway to alternate narration.

Come to the YA author panel and leave with age-appropriate, high-interest, contemporary titles that will easily support lessons aligned with skills and standards. And the kids won’t hate them. Win/win!

The Young Adult Lit Lovers Meetup will be Sunday 2:00 PM–3:00 PM at the Age of Literacy Learning Lounge.

The ILA 2016 Conference & Exhibits will be July 9–11 in Boston, MA, with more than 6,000 attendees eager to cultivate new teaching practices. With over 300 sessions, including several new additions to the schedule, and the popular Preconference Institutes on July 8, the weekend is sure to be a memorable one. Learn more about what’s coming up at this summer’s conference at ilaconference.org.

The ability to speak multiple languages is a coveted skill in today’s economy. The goal is to create a learning environment that promotes language acquisition while making the curriculum accessible to everyone. For policymakers and educators worldwide, the question is how to foster that environment in an era of tight budgets, diverse priorities, and political sensitivities.

Schools that truly embrace multilingualism report higher levels of community engagement and academic achievement across the board. If implemented poorly, though, such programs can further marginalize groups that aren’t proficient in the dominant language.

To stimulate fresh thinking on this critical topic, the International Literacy Association (ILA) recently convened a roundtable with a distinguished group of advocacy and policy experts in Washington, DC. In a wide-ranging conversation led by award-winning journalist Diane Brady, experts shared their thinking on the best practices and priorities for achieving true multilingual learning. In a three-part blog series, we’ll explore the key takeaways from the conversation.

Parents have long recognized the importance of English as the language of global business, but as the world becomes more interconnected and emerging economies gain strength, it is clear that multilingualism is prerequisite for success. In the U.S. and beyond, dual-language programs are oversubscribed, noted Beatriz Arias, vice president and chief development officer for the Center for Applied Linguistics. “Parents are recognizing the importance of their children being bilingual or multilingual—the economic benefits of that for their kids.”

Multilingualism “is going to be the differentiator,” said Mariana Haynes, senior fellow, Alliance for Excellent Education, adding that students understand the value of having those skills on their resume.

Deputy Secretary Mohamed Abdel-Kader, the International Foreign Language Education Office of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Post-Secondary Education, suggested engaging the business community to stress the importance of language learning. “I think that’s incredibly important, because as the business community articulates the need for at least a basic understanding of language and some of the cultural nuances, parents are thinking about their kids, when they graduate college, those kids need to have a job.”

Multilingualism “is not a partisan issue,” Abdel-Kader said. This is the right thing to do for our kids. It is the right thing to do for our businesses. It is the right thing to do for our communities. The kids need these skills to be able to communicate.”

At the simplest level, Arias said, “We need leadership at all different levels in order to encourage growth and understanding of the importance of multilingualism—we need to value multilingualism, and have clear ways to do that.”

“We need to dispel the myths surrounding bilingualism primarily that learning two or even three languages as a child brings confusion and lowers academic achievement,” Marty Abbott, executive director of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages added. “We have research that proves the opposite.”

Within the education community, we need to equip educators with the resources and tools they need to embrace and encourage multilingualism, noted Hector Montenegro, associate, Margarita Calderón & Associates. “Educators need additional resources and information about how best to work collaborative so that we can have a more accepting and welcoming environment—school and classroom—where teachers can teach effectively.”

Haynes noted that fragmented leader and teacher development should be addressed in order to create structures for language learning. “Leaders play a huge role in setting the tone. If teachers work in isolation, it is impossible to make this happen. You have a lot of district policies that are very much at odds with the kinds of things that you want to have happening within schools.”

We also need to take a step outside of the schools themselves and consider how governments can support and foster a culture of multilingualism, Abbott suggested, and continue “to build champions in Congress,” to push forward research on the importance of languages. “Hopefully we can have an impact working together.”

Leslie Engle Young, Director of Impact for Pencils of Promise, added policy considerations should take into account the best practices and proven strategies that already exist around multilingual learning. “It’s getting the case studies, bringing the evidence forward, and showing evidence from abroad. We should be cross-learning with evidence from across the board.”

The ability to speak multiple languages is a coveted skill in today’s economy. The goal is to create a learning environment that promotes language acquisition while making the curriculum accessible to everyone. For policymakers and educators worldwide, the question is how to foster that environment in an era of tight budgets, diverse priorities, and political sensitivities.

Schools that truly embrace multilingualism report higher levels of community engagement and academic achievement across the board. If implemented poorly, though, such programs can further marginalize groups that aren’t proficient in the dominant language.

To stimulate fresh thinking on this critical topic, the International Literacy Association (ILA) recently convened a roundtable with a distinguished group of advocacy and policy experts in Washington, DC. In a wide-ranging conversation led by award-winning journalist Diane Brady, experts shared their thinking on the best practices and priorities for achieving true multilingual learning. In a three-part blog series, we’ll explore the key takeaways from the conversation.

Research shows that children can handle learning of two, and even three, languages from the time they start school. Yet foreign language requirements tend to become mandatory only in high school—and the requirements are not consistent across school districts. There is also a notion afoot that students need to be proficient in one language before introducing a second and a third.

We know children are more open to learning languages at younger ages, so why wait until they're teens to reinforce the value of language? “We know that there is a window of availability to quickly and ably grasp language to a greater degree of fluency, and that it begins to close down as children get older,” said Marcie Craig Post, ILA’s executive director. “Capturing and leveraging that is going to be critically important.”

Marty Abbott, executive director of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, noted, “As adults, it is hard for us to imagine young children picking up languages so quickly. We underestimate the ability of students to pick up languages, and really become proficient, I mean very proficient, in writing as well as speaking.” 

Engaging students’ parents is critical, said Leslie Engle Young, Director of Impact for Pencils of Promise. “If we don’t tap into that resource, we don’t tap into what children are capable of learning when they’re very young, even before school, and what the parents are capable of supporting in the home.”

Did you know that F. Scott Fitzgerald, considered one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century, had terrible grammar? His first drafts were full of spelling and punctuation errors, giving his editor quite the headache when pulling out the masterful content beneath the mistakes.

If only he had Grammar Girl, aka Mignon Fogarty, around to help. Luckily for us, we do. Although she probably won’t help you write the next Great Gatsby, she can guide you through the murky waters of tricky comma rules and obscure apostrophe standards. Grammar Girl knows that mastering grammar can sometimes feel like learning a second version of English—especially when zealous grammar experts pounce at the first sign of error—so she is committed to being a friendly and educational voice in the English learning world.

Join our #ILAchat on at 8:00 p.m. ET on Thursday, May 12, to hear from the grammar hero herself as we discuss how to make grammar less scary and more fun for casual writers and published authors alike. Topics to be discussed include the changing rules of grammar on social media, teaching styles as opposed to rules, and the always charged Oxford comma debate.

Fogarty is the founder and managing director of Quick and Dirty Tips, an online resource for all things punctuation, style, and business related. With a range of experience in both writing and editing, Fogarty strives “to be a friendly guide in the writing world.” Her award-winning Grammar Girl podcast has thousands of subscribers, and her equally popular blog was recently recognized as one of Writer’s Digest’s 101 Best Websites for Writers.

Follow #ILAchat and @ILAToday at 8:00 p.m. ET on Thursday, May 12, to join the conversation about the sometimes scary but never boring world of grammar.

Nicole Lund is ILA’s communications intern.

General Session speakers will spark some of the most engaging and dynamic conversations at ILA 2016 Conference & Exhibits. This year, five distinguished speakers who embody the definition of “literacy leader” are united by their love of words and drive to share the power of literacy.

Newbery Medal and Coretta Scott King Author Honor winner Kwame Alexander will speak at the Opening General Session Saturday, July 9. Alexander is not only an award-winning author, but also a poet, literacy advocate, and founder of Book-in-a-Day and LEAP for Ghana, two organizations devoted to empowering youth through literacy. Alexander will be discussing the power of language in both marginalizing and empowering children, emphasizing the importance of instilling confidence through literature.

“Every child has the potential to really excel at reading and writing,” Alexander said in a recent interview in Literacy Today. “Do we give them that opportunity?”

Author, speaker, literacy advocate, and current college student Adora Svitak has seized every opportunity that has presented itself in her young life. After publishing two books before age 11, Svitak delivered a now-famous TED Talk titled “What Adults Can Learn From Kids” in 2010 when she was 12. Its success is seen in the numbers: The video has since garnered over 4 million views and has been translated into more than 40 languages. Now 19 and a student at the University of California, Berkeley, Svitak continues to write and advocate for global literacy, with a special focus on embracing technology and empowering youth and will share her vision at Opening General Session.

“Living in a digital-driven world means that people are losing out on more by not being able to read and write; it also means that more people who are literate but aren’t using their abilities to their full potential need to be able to think critically about the content they’re consuming and, occasionally, mindfully disconnect,” Svitak said in Literacy Today in March.

Closing General Session Monday, July 11, will have the theme of social responsibility with three speakers who advocate for literacy in very different ways.

New York Times best-selling author and award-winner Laurie Halse Anderson will speak about how researching and writing her Seeds of America trilogy changed the way she sees the United States and increased her sense of responsibility to her readers. Well-known and widely applauded for addressing difficult topics in her novels, Anderson spent the past 25 years researching the often dark and painful history of America for her work. Crediting literature for enriching her knowledge of history and cultures, Anderson’s presentation at the Closing General Session is sure to be engaging for her longtime readers and literacy advocates alike.

Microsoft’s Director of Worldwide Education Strategy Steven Duggan, another dynamic TED presenter, will address the ever-growing significance of the relationship between technology and education around the world and particularly in developing countries where quality education is scarce. A former school teacher who has worked in education for more than 30 years, Duggan is a member of the Governing Board of the UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (IITE). He will expound on his work in bringing technology to the classroom, a hot topic for teachers and advocates who want to stay on the cutting edge.

Struck by the vital importance of enabling youth through literacy, reading support specialist and nonprofit founder Ana Dodson is a member of ILA’s inaugural 30 Under 30 class of literacy leaders. Dodson urges others to “believe in your ability to change the world by adding positive energy into it,” as she works around the world to not only impact literacy herself, but also inspire others to take up the cause and lead in their own ways.

Born in Peru and adopted by American parents as an infant, Dodson founded Peruvian Hearts when she was 11 to provide food, clothes, medical care, and financial support for higher education to impoverished girls. Now in its 13th year, Peruvian Hearts combines enhanced educational opportunities with mentorship and service to equip young women with the skills to break the cycle of poverty.

The ILA 2016 Conference & Exhibits will be July 9–11 in Boston, MA, with more than 6,000 attendees eager to cultivate new teaching practices. With over 300 sessions, including several new additions to the schedule, and the popular Preconference Institutes on July 8, the weekend is sure to be a memorable one. Learn more about what’s coming up at this summer’s conference. Register today.

Nicole Lund is ILA’s communications intern.