Children’s Literacy and Reading News Roundup – Early April Edition
The Early April edition of the children’s literacy and reading news round-up, brought to you by Jen Robinson’s Book Page, Scrub-a-Dub-Tub, and Rasco from RIF is now available at Jen Robinson’s Book Page. Over the past couple of weeks Jen Robinson, Carol Rasco, and I have collected plenty of content for you about literacy & reading-related events; literacy and reading programs and research; and suggestions for growing bookworms.
Of all the things that Jen has packed into the roundup my favorite is Baby Bookworm’s first birthday! One year ago tomorrow, Jen and Mheir celebrated Baby Bookworm’s arrival … ten weeks early. Congrats Jen and Mheir … and happy birthday Baby B!
If you hang out in the kidlitosphere at all, you know it is National Poetry Month. Like Jen, I am a big fan of Greg Pincus (Gregory K from Gotta Book and The Happy Accident). For the third year, Greg has his 30 Poets / 30 Days project going, and this year he has added a new opportunity for more of us to support poetry for kids: Poetry: Spread the Word. This is a Kickstarter project where you get something unique and valuable and Greg earns the funds to share poetry and poetry writing with school visits. I hadn’t seen this until Jen’s roundup. Very cool. If you’d like to see what else is going on around the Kidlitosphere for National Poetry Month, look no further than Kidlitosphere Central.
In commenting on a recent study by the Journal Research in Social Stratification that shows a correlation to books at home and kids’ (higher) education levels, Jen pondered aloud about “how electronic books and iPads would factor in to a future study like this.” Well, I’m glad she asked. As I was finishing reading the Roundup (as a co-author I get the benefit of an ARC version!), I saw these two ReadWriteWeb items in my reader:
- iPad or Smartphone: Which Has Impacted Your Life More by Richard MacManus. Although the discussion focuses on preference, the bottom line was the same: people are configuring their devices to get their news, including RSS readers.
- The newly released Speak Up 2010 survey (of 300,000 students), shows that even very young students are using technology in their daily lives, but that school administrators continue to be the obstacle to using them in the classroom. Read Audrey Watter’s full article. The statistics are fascinating, and so is the ongoing discussion in the comments.
Frankly, I was shocked to see that 20% of K-2 students own cellphones. They need a cellphone at age 5? Really? Having access to cell phones is different … and is a different number in the survey results.
There is an interesting piece in today’s St. Cloud Times about international educational efforts and the events in the Middle East. Literacy Fuels Middle East Change by Lois Thielen (Times Writers Group) draws on the work/theories of two of St. Cloud’s own: Greg Mortenson (author of Three Cups of Tea) and Dana Rosky (Executive Director of the Tesfa Foundation).
I know I posted it earlier, but it’s worth repeating: today’s Nonfiction Monday Round-up is at L.L. Owens.
As always, thanks for joining us for the roundups and all the support you give us with retweets!
I can’t say I’m surprised that some teachers are the obstacle to technology in the classroom. Whether it’s a result of their own technophobia, the amount of work that goes into it’s use or fear that students will be distracted from the main focus of it’s use it makes sense that it would be minimized. I wish it weren’t the case though as technology is such a huge part of children’s lives at this point.