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Australian all-rounder Watson also bats for charity and literacy

BANGALORE // The first thing that strikes you about Shane Watson, the Australia all-rounder, is his imposing physique.

The muscular opener for the world champions in one-day cricket has the torso of an Australia rules footballer and has been dubbed "Tarzan" in certain circles. Yet there is far more to him than initially meets the eye.

For one, Watson is the International Cricket Council (ICC) ambassador for Room to Read, an organisation that "seeks to transform the lives of millions of children in developing countries by focusing on literacy and gender equality in education". http://bit.ly/f18q8V

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Children and reading

“It is not enough to simply teach children to read; we have to give them something worth reading. Something that will stretch their imaginations--something that will help them make sense of their own lives and encourage them to reach out toward people whose lives are quite different from their own.”
- Katherine Patterson

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Christmas book 3 – The Jolly Christmas Postman (with lesson plans)

The Jolly Christmas Postman (The Jolly Postman) (Hardback)
By Janet and Allan Ahlberg, Illustrated by Janet Ahlberg

It's Christmas Eve and the Jolly Postman is delivering greetings to various fairy-tale characters - there's a card for Baby Bear, a game appropriately called 'Beware' for Red Riding Hood from Mr Wolf, a get-well jigsaw for hospitalized Humpty Dumpty and three more surprise envelopes containing letters, and cards.

A Genre Study of Letters With The Jolly Postman

Questions to ask before, during, and after reading

Activities

Language arts/Reading - Historical fiction

Library Letter Writing Unit Plan

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Advocacy at its very best – Teacher-librarian Joyce Valenza

What librarians make. A response to Dr. Bernstein and an homage to Taylor Mali

He says the problem with librarians is that they are antiquated.

The problem with libraries is that they are anachronisms, sacred cows.

Sometimes, when I am introduced, people refer to me as more than a librarian because I write a blog or speak at an occasional conference. Because it is not impressive enough to be a librarian.

In polite company, I bite my tongue when I hear them ask:

“You’re a librarian, Joyce,” they say. “Be honest. With all the information available for free on the Web, what exactly do you do?”

They ask me to be honest.

And, you see, like Taylor, I have a policy about honesty, especially when it has to do with equity for kids. To be honest, I believe that all children deserve strong school libraries with professional teacher librarians.

And, if you ask for my honesty, I have to let you have it.

I am not an anachronism.

You want to know what I do? You want to know why I am here?

The whole, wonderful article is here... http://bit.ly/eeVc0P

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Looking at language and literature with Kaleidoscope

Bring award-winning novels to life with this interactive middle school language arts curriculum. Kaleidoscope presents a movie theatre interface for learning about language and literature. Students visit the box office and start with the activity in Movie Theatre 1. Then they complete all six activities in order. In the activities, students study the characters and create a movie poster to promote the book.
http://bit.ly/fKr5om

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Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation Wall of Hands

The Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation have launched their Wall of Hands 2010 campaign for indigenous literacy - check out the link below, see how the appeal is going and make a donation if you want.

http://bit.ly/9I89tU

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Librarian Wings It—Dances the “Chicken Dance” for Literacy

Susan Scatena

Librarian Susan Scatena challenged her summer readers: if they read 2500 books, she will dress as a chicken and do the chicken dance on the library steps! The children were so anxious to see the spectacle, 355 children read more than 5,800 books!

http://www.ilovelibraries.org/news/topstories/queenslibrarychickendance.cfm

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Free online reading tools for kids

Reading methods are divided into four. The first is the phonics wherein children are being taught about the alphabet first. From there, kids will learn how to blend letters together.

The second reading method is called the “look and say” method. This is one method wherein children are taught how to recognize the whole word instead of relying on the sounds of the letters that form them. This is also that method where teachers pronounce the word and their pupils repeat after them.

As for the third method which is known as the language experience approach, the student actually learns how to read on his own. Your kids may start drawing some things then you will write the description of the drawing. You can continue to collect all the drawings the child makes then keep on writing descriptions of that drawing.
Lastly, the fourth method is called the context support method. In here, you should encourage the child to choose books or topics they are interested about. Know what your child likes and then start from simple books with pictures of these items.

With all these four reading methods, you will be able to find an available tool online. Examples of free tools are as follows:

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“The tremendous power of books”

Recently, book publishers got some good news. Researchers gave 852 disadvantaged students 12 books (of their own choosing) to take home at the end of the school year. They did this for three successive years.

Then the researchers, led by Richard Allington of the University of Tennessee, looked at those students’ test scores. They found that the students who brought the books home had significantly higher reading scores than other students. These students were less affected by the “summer slide” — the decline that especially afflicts lower-income students during the vacation months. In fact, just having those 12 books seemed to have as much positive effect as attending summer school.

Read more ...

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Book owners have smarter kids

When it comes to your children, the books in your house matter more than your education or income

A study recently published in the journal Research in Social Stratification and Mobility found that just having books around the house (the more, the better) is correlated with how many years of schooling a child will complete.

Read more...