Reading Round-Up, 19 May

It is a glorious Monday here in Charlottesville (or Cville as we call it!). It’s one of those May-feels-like-September mornings with cool, crisp air and warm sun … a day for taking spending time in the garden! Before I go, here is this week’s round-up.

Online Journals and eMags

The May edition of The Edge of the Forest is up. This is an online children’s literature monthly. You’ll find book reviews (separated by audience category) , an interview, articles, and even letters to the editor. The archive is available, too.

Just in time for Asian-Pacific Heritage Month, the May/June 2008 edition of Paper Tigers is posted. On the Paper Tigers Website you’ll find books with a focus on the Pacific Rim and South Asia (there’s even a map so you know all the countries in the region)! Be sure to check out the book-related resources. Excellent stuff.

This Week’s Round-up of Posts

Kids Can Love to Read … even if you Don’t. There is a great post at the Literacy and Reading News blog. The title says it all: How You Can Help Your Child to Read Even if You Hate Reading Yourself. The original article is by Andy McKenna. It is posted by Brian Scott. We read it here: Literacy and Reading News, the staff of www.literacynews.com.

Literacy Starts at Home. In the 15 May 2008 edition of Reading Today Daily, Louise Ash summarizes an OpEd piece by Esther Jantzen in the Los Angeles Times about the Reading First program. In her post, Ms. Ash highlights the observation that literacy development is affected by the conversations we have with children: how much they are spoken with AND the tone of voice we use. Here’s we read about it: “Literacy Begins at Home, Advocate Says,” Reading Today Daily, the International Reading Association (IRA) blog.

Why reading matters. Jill at The Well-Read Child wrote a very thoughtful post that talks about why we need to help kids learn to read. She offers her own observations based on working with kids (and adults) who can’t read, and offers two great links. The first one is to the raise.smart.kid website about the benefits of reading with your child … and how they extend well beyond letter recognition and words. She also has a link to the Partnership for Learning website and a list of the Warning Signs of Struggling Readers. We read Jill’s post, Fighting Illiteracy is a Community Effort, at The Well-Read Child.

More Summer Reading. The Horn Book has published its list of summer reading suggestions. The lists are broken down by age group and book type. We read about it at The Wild Rose Reader. You can also see the list that the Indiana Department of Education released as its suggested summer reading. We read The Wild Rose Reader and Louise Ash’s article “Indiana Releases Summer Reading List for Kids, Adults” at Reading Today Daily, the IRA blog.

Reading is Fundamental. I don’t know whether you’ve followed the broo-ha-ha (polite term) about RIF and whether (or not) it will continue to be funded. Well, that didn’t dampen Reading is Fun Week, RIF’s ramp-up event to prepare for summer. You’ll get some ideas about making reading part of your summer from Anne-Marie at My Readable Feast. We read “Celebrate Reading is Fun Week with RIF and Get Ready for Summer” at My Readable Feast.

Reading Could Save Your Life. Louise Ash posted a vignette about how reading could affect your health at Reading Today Daily. It is an event-driven story about how a woman’s inability to read a medicine bottle affected her ability to care for her children. Here’s the source: Reading Today Daily, the IRA blog.

Dr. Literacy, Ph.D. Middle Tennessee State University has developed a new Literacy Studies doctoral degree. It is a “new approach to understanding why a child doesn’t learn how to read includes looking underneath the scores to the humanity of the individual.” according to the article by Brian Scott in Literacy and Reading News. This is an interdisciplinary doctorate that includes education and special education, English (linguistics), communication disorders, psychology, sociology, dyslexic studies in the curriculum. Here’s the article “New Literacy Ph.D. Will Change the Teaching of Reading,” Literacy and Reading News, www.literacynews.com.