Children’s Literacy and Reading News Roundup – 11 January

Welcome to the weekly roundup of news, analysis, and ideas for raising readers. This week Jen Robinson is hosting our children’s literacy and reading news round-up. The roundups are brought to you by Jen Robinson’s Book Page and Scrub-a-Dub-Tub, a Reading Tub blog. Jen and I collected plenty of content for you about literacy and reading-related events; literacy/reading programs and research; 21st century literacies; and grants, sponsorships and donations.

There are some particularly  nifty things going on, with plenty of opportunities for us to grow as mentors and help young readers and readers-to-be. Some of my favorites …

Next Monday is the first National Day of Service for 2010. For many of us – and our kids – it is a day home, together! Why not spend a little extra time reading? Tina Chovanec has a post at First Book that includes some practical reading ideas that you’ll find on the Reading Rockets, as well as links to other resources.

If you’re not sure that spending a little time reading with your child can make a difference, then you’ll want to read  this dad’s story about hisview of  daughter’s education at Room to Read.

And in my continuing quest to use “Cybils” in more posts … Jen has a great post at Booklights this morning about how the 2009 Cybils shortlists and how they are handy-dandy tools for finding books kids will enjoy. In my two years as a panelist, I ‘read-tested’ the nominated books with the target audience! I know many others who have, as well. The “highest literary  merit and kid appeal” pieces are very real criteria.

Wrapping up …

Sally Apokedak is hosting this week’s Nonfiction Monday roundup at Whispers of Dawn. [I’m not sure which is harder to spell … Scieszka or Apokedak!] As of this writing (10:00 EST) Sally’s roundup link wasn’t up … but you can send an email to her with your post.  sally-apokedak dot com