Literacy Now

Schools, libraries, museums, businesses, websites, and other organization that are doing something truly unique and innovative to help foster a love of reading are invited to apply for the National Book Foundation’s 2012 Innovations in Reading Prize.

Winners receive $2,500 each to put toward their programs, and the Foundation will publicize the program via their website, press releases, eNewsletter, and Facebook and Twitter feeds. As part of the Prize, winners receive an all-expenses-paid trip to New York to attend a special luncheon at the Ford Foundation, where they will present their work to funders and other people in the field, as well as the National Book Awards Ceremony and Benefit Dinner at Cipriani Wall Street.

The postmark deadline for application materials is February 21, 2012. 

To see a list of past Innovations in Reading Prize winners and to download the 2012 application, visit www.nationalbook.org/innovations_in_reading.html.

by Kimberly Kimbell-Lopez, Ed.D.

A challenge for K-2 teachers is how to supplement instruction in letter recognition and phonics with authentic texts and resources. Starfall (http://www.starfall.com) is a web site that can meet this need. Recognized by The Reading Teacher as one of five Internet sites too good to miss (Labbo, 2006), teachers and students are provided access to multimedia texts and activities designed to supplement instruction in these key skill areas. The activities and animations at the Starfall website are “short, engaging, and supportive of students’ letter recognition and early phonics awareness” (p. 811). 

In the section ABCs-Let’s Get Ready to Read, students can practice their letter recognition skills. When the letter of the alphabet is selected, the uppercase and lowercase letter is read aloud. As each new page opens, a graphic that corresponds to the letter is shown. Students click on the graphic (e.g., boy), then the name of the graphic is read aloud and placed in a phrase or sentence (e.g., I am a boy.). An additional option is that students with a hearing impairment can see the sign language version of the letter displayed at the same time as the written version. The section Learn to Read provides multimedia texts that reinforce phonic elements and word families. There are 15 options that include games, texts, and video clips. For example, activities for the short “a” sound (/ă/) include word family games for –an and –at as well as a book titled Zac the Rat. I’m Reading includes texts for plays, nonfiction, comics, folk tales, Greek myths, and Chinese tales. Students can opt to hear segments of text read aloud, or they can hear the words read aloud one by one.

If you have web access, then the Starfall resources can be used one-on-one, with small groups, or with large groups. The resources are also great for literacy stations where students can work at a single computer using headphones. As noted by W. Ian O'Byrne in his article Opportunities for Multimedia Reading (December, 2011), it is important to teach your students how to access multimedia texts. This could be done by first “reading” the text with students without accessing any of the multimedia components. You can then teach them how to access the other available features (i.e., videos, audio features of text, interactive games). Take time today to explore the resources found at this award-winning website!

References 

Labbo, L. (2006). Five Internet sites too good to miss. The Reading Teacher, 59, 810-812.

O’Byrne, W.I. (December, 2011). Opportunities for multimedia reading. Reading Today Online. Retrieved January 27, 2012 from /reading-today/post//11-12-09/Opportunities_for_Multimedia_Reading.aspx.

 

Kimberly Kimbell-Lopez, Ed.D., is a professor in the Department of Curriculum, Instruction, and Leadership in the College of Education at Louisiana Tech University. 

This article is part of a series from the International Reading Association's Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).

 

Being a teacher means embracing constant change. Yet all too often, teachers are told when, how and why to change. In this monthly column, Mrs. Mimi takes on creating change for herself by rethinking old practices and redefining teaching on her own terms.

Elementary schools can be aggressively positive places. You turned in your homework on time? Gold star for you! You remembered to push in your chair without me asking? Here’s a scratch-and-sniff smiley face! You raised your hand before shouting out? Three cheers for you! Wait…did you just pass the eraser nicely to a friend? Someone get the prize box!

We, the teachers of the small fries, are so ready to celebrate any and all successes, that we occasionally turn a blind eye to those not-so-perfect moments.

I know we all have high aspirations for our students. We want them to meet the goals we set for them and more. We want them to feel successful, be lifelong learners, and all the stuff of deeply nerdy teacher dreams.

However, there were times in my classroom where I realized that these beautifully lofty visions for my students got in the way of seeing or hearing what was actually coming out of their mouths.

Let me give you an example from the early days of Mrs. Mimi’s teaching.

The scene: My classroom. My little friends are gathered on the carpet. We are halfway through my annual reading of CHARLOTTE’S WEB. We have just finished reading our chapter for the day and are deep into discussing connections to the text.

Friend: I can totally connect to Fern because I really love my cat and my mom doesn’t.

Me: Say more about that.

Friend: Well, Fern loved Wilbur a lot and fought to keep him even though her parents wanted to give him away because he was a runt.

Me: Yes! (Insert self-satisfied grin here…my kids are nailing this!) I like where you’re going. How does this connection help you to better understand the character?

Friend: Well, my mom doesn’t like my cat at all. But I do. Because she is really crazy and chases her tail and that makes me think that Fern thinks Wilbur is really funny when he chases his tail too.

Me: ???

Friend: So Fern and me both love our pets because loving your pets is important. I understand Fern better now.

Me: (sigh)

Frustrated, I moved on. Afraid to shut down this friend, I moved on. Unsure of how to handle this, I moved on. Unwilling to negate such an enthusiastic reply, I moved on. I made a mental note to address this issue with my friend at another time and…(you guessed it!) I moved on. And by moving on, I demonstrated my passive acceptance of this response.

The message to my friends? This answer is okay. It is acceptable and if I wasn’t holding the book and in the middle of a lesson, I would high five you and take you out for ice cream. When really? This is just a hop, skip, and a jump from saying, “Fern is wearing a blue shirt and I like blue shirts too!”

I realized that I was so ready to see my students as lifelong readers that I was willing to accept many responses that just weren’t quite up to snuff. I was so ready for them to be successful, that too often I let moments like this slide by rather than holding my friends accountable for giving a solid answer. I was so ready to be positive and supportive of their thinking that I didn’t adequately teach into their misunderstanding or miscommunication.

One day, after giving out more stickers than there are stars in the sky (and it was only 9:00!), I challenged myself to rethink these moments and found this bit of reflection had a profound impact on my teaching practice. Rather than simply state that my classroom was a place where all students were safe to try, experiment, succeed and sometimes fail, I had to actively make my classroom a place where these things could happen.

I had to take those I-have-a-pet-too moments, turn them on their head and model for students how to think through and respond to questions accurately and clearly. I had to push my friends to express themselves clearly rather than rely on what I wanted to hear them say or where I thought they might be going with a particular comment. I had to separate who I thought they could be from who they were in that moment, put down my stickers, and listen.

Mrs. Mimi is a pseudonymous teacher who taught both first and second grades at a public elementary school in New York City. She's the author of IT'S NOT ALL FLOWERS AND SAUSAGES: MY ADVENTURES IN SECOND GRADE, which sprung from her popular blog of the same name. Mimi also has her doctorate in education from Teachers College, Columbia University.

This series of K-12 book reviews from the International Reading Association's Children's Literature and Reading Special Interest Group (CL/R SIG) concludes with this list of fabulous texts that follow the theme “Wheels of Change.” 

Grades K-3 

Colón, Edie. (2011). Good-bye, Havana!, Hola, New York! Illus. by Raul Colón. New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.
Change comes to Cuba when Fidel Castro takes over leadership of the country. In this autobiographical picture book, six-year old Gabriella soon learns that this political change spells changes for her own family and the way they’ve been living. While her parents flee the country for a new life to the north, Gabriella lives with her grandparents and waits for her parents to find living accommodations in New York City. Once her parents return for her, and she begins a new life in New York, Gabriella struggles with many of the changes including a smaller dwelling place, the cold weather, and the language. Most of all, though, she misses her grandparents who are still living in Cuba. The story is actually based on the author’s own childhood experiences. Edie Colón is an ESL teacher and deftly interweaves Spanish words into the text, making this an excellent choice for multicultural collections containing books describing the immigrant experience of young children. The beautiful illustrations are filled with vibrant hues, and are rendered by the author’s husband. 

- Karen Hildebrand, Ohio Library and Reading Consultant

Grades 4-7

Lin, Grace. (2012). Dumpling days. New York, NY: Little, Brown. 

 

 

by Janice Friesen

Digital storytelling is a great way to help students become fluent readers and to be proud of their writing. It allows students to develop their writer’s voice while listening to their physical voices. These are the goals of my Digital Storytelling after-school class for 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders, and it is great fun. Here is a sequence of six to eight sessions that we often follow at our school to create digital stories.

Day 1: We begin with their writing. In the first session, students choose a piece of writing and practice reading and recording their stories. These are only first audio drafts. The goal is to give them a chance to hear their own voices and to learn how to make and save an audio file. At the end of the session, we listen to each other’s recordings and notice what worked and what did not. 

Day 2: During the second session, we start collecting pictures to use in their stories. I encourage children to find, take, or draw approximately 10 pictures. At our school, we have laptops, and students learn to find pictures in a safe way on the Internet. One search engine that’s great for locating appropriate pictures uses the Safe Search filter from Google. I also introduce their teachers to important copyright guidelines. If students choose to draw their own pictures, we love the creative drawing tools at KerPoof Studio. 

Days 3 and 4: The next sessions are working sessions. Everyone will be at a different stage in their writing, finding pictures, or recording their voices. We have mini lessons on topics when there are lots of questions. At this stage, it is important to keep in mind that there are multiple ways to record a digital story. 

• If your computer has a built in microphone, students can record their voices directly into the computer.  Often, these built-in devices are not of the highest quality, but they will definitely work.
• A second option is to use an external microphone that you plug into the computer. This works much better and there are many possibilities. A microphone with a headset is a great idea, as it allows listening and keeps other sounds out.  
• A third way students can record their voices is with a digital recording device or a Smartphone with a free or inexpensive recording apps such as Audacity or QuickVoice. These devices often work well. However, the audio files students create then need to be imported into the computer, so this third option requires a few additional steps. You can learn more about how to create high quality audio recordings at http://www.articulate.com/rapid-elearning/4-simple-tips-for-recording-high-quality-audio/.

Days 5 to 8: Somewhere around the fifth session, I introduce the idea of putting all of the pieces together into one movie. Using Windows Live Movie Maker, I show them how to open the program, import their pictures, video and voices, and then put in transitions, titles, and scrolling credits. A few students understand many of these steps the first time, but most benefit from at least two or three different explanations before they can accomplish these tasks independently. Occasionally, we run into some challenges when our Internet connection does not work, but when that happens, I have found the following ideas work well to use the time effectively - even when the server is down:

• Have the students practice their fluency skills by reading their stories to each other.
• Use the time for them to do a digital drawing using a program like Paint that they can use in their stories. Save their drawings onto a thumb drive so that they can be put into their folders on the server when it is back up again.
• Pass out a storyboard and give them time to plan which pictures they want for their stories. You can find great examples of storyboard templates to share with students at http://www.printablepaper.net/category/storyboard.
• Use the time to teach them the basics of Movie Maker. Challenge them to make a simple movie using the sample files found on the computer. You can find a short overview of Movie Maker at http://www.saskschools.ca/resources/techref/moviemaker/movie.html or a more comprehensive tutorial at http://www.atomiclearning.com/moviemaker2. Then, young children may later incorporate these additional movie-making skills into their digital writing toolbox. 

Following this type of sequence means that in six to eight sessions, the students will have created digital stories that give them a powerful writing voice while also being able to demonstrate the skills they have learned. A collection of finished stories from our own sessions can be viewed online at our school’s video gallery. Overall, I have found that even though the process can be unpredictable, the skills that students learn and their growth as writers make it all worthwhile.

For more information about Digital Storytelling, you might enjoy the tips and examples outlined in Digital Storytelling: Expanding the Potential for Struggling Writers, by Ruth Sylvester and Wendy Lou Greenidge, reprinted from The Reading Teacher and found online at Reading Rockets.  

Janice Friesen is a self-employed teacher in Austin, Texas. Her business I’m not a Geek.com helps people to be successful using technology. Her searchable blog http://helpimnotageek.blogspot.com offers tips for successful use of technology. 

This article is part of a series from the International Reading Association's Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).