TubTalk

Happy New Year! It feels good (if not a little overwhelming) to be back in the office. Catherine was very excited to head back to school this morning. She thought that since it is a new year, then she must be in a new grade. Oh, to have a first grader's sense of time! Like the rest of us, she is charged by that internal clock that says "it's time for a fresh start."

As I mentioned in my New Year's resolutions post, bloggers within the Lit-blogosphere are energized and posting lots of fresh ideas for reading, reviewing, and blogging about books in 2009. In the kidlitosphere (since I follow that most closely), great things come from the conversations on our blogs. I created a Mr. Linky at the resolutions post as an informal way to pull some of that energy together. So please stop by and add your post.

While we were away enjoying some time with our families, Jen Robinson and I were still collecting news and ideas. The good news is that reading and literacy news was fairly minimal until late last week. Some of the items may be from December, but we kept them because they have a "timeless" quality. So here's the first Reading Round-up for 2009.

Book Your Resolutions - Over at Literacy Learning, Timothy Shanahan offers his recommended "resolutions" for the incoming Secretary of Education. If you're looking for something on a little bit smaller scale, and haven't quite decided on your reading or book goals for the year, you may find some inspiration here:

• Book Challenges - Visit Shelly Burns at Write for a Reader. She has a post with three book challenges. Over at A Wrung Sponge, Cloudscome invites us to the Diversity Rocks! challenge. She's got everything you need to know in this post.
• Book Groups - If you're not up for or into challenges, but want to talkA Year of Reading. Mary Lee posted an invitation about a NING group she and Franki have joined. The English Companion group/ring talks about elementary read alouds.
• Raising Readers - Over at 5 Minutes for Books, Jennifer's post about Read Kiddo Read, reminds us that we need to continue to promote reading at home, despite our kids' changing interests. Hopefully the next item (too long to include here) will help you with this resolution.

Happy Holidays. We have just about counted up the first twelve. Boy, they're going fast. As you probably noticed in Jen's December 1 Children's Literacy Roundup, we started to see a shift in how the book and literacy communities framed their discussions of reading and literacy. Little less just-the-facts-ma'am, a little more holiday cheer. It continued this week, as we have seen more emphasis on ways to share a love of reading.

Events In the Blogosphere & In Your Community

If you're thinking about giving books as gifts, you'll find great, very thoughtful ideas all around the lit blogosphere. Colleen Mondor is rounding up lots of our book recommendations for holiday shopping at Chasing Ray. Over at Chicken Spaghetti, Susan is keeping us in the know with all of the "Best of" lists. Get a running start with this post. If you're still short of ideas,  MotherReader has more than 100 ideas, broken into nice 21-item bits. So go here, here, here, here, and here. Sarah's posts at the Reading Zone about books for Twighlight-obsessed tweens and struggling readers aren't to be missed. Over at Interesting Nonfiction for Kids, Kathleen Krull is happy to offer nonfiction suggestions for readers on your list.

Okay, so that's lots of new books. What about those barely-been-used books we've been reading, reviewing, and collecting all year? Donate them! Gently used books are the perfect item to re-gift ... especially children's books, because they can help a child grow as a reader. Here are some book events that may be of interest. If you have an event or know of one, be sure to tell us about it in the comments.

• 10 December, Beverly Hilton - Trader Vic's Lounch. Everybody Wins! Los Angeles, a literacy non-profit, is sponsoring its Holiday of Hope Book Drive. Read this post on the Everybody Wins! USA blog to learn more.
• Until 22 December, Charleston, SC. The Steinberg Law Firm is accepting new and gently used books to donate to Trident Learning's literacy centers. You can read this article on the Charleston and Islands News website to learn more.
• Until December 12, Baltimore, MD Two local organizations that support youth are selling personalized books to promote reading and fellowship. Learn more in this announcement at www.blackauthors.ning.com.
• Whitney M. Young Jr., Health Services, Albany, NY. In addition to medical-based services for families, this organization also runs pediatric literacy program. The organization needs new or gently used books for children. Read Tom Keyser's article for the Time Union (online) for more details.
• Brandie Ahlgren let us know in this post (with sneak peeks) at the City Dog Magazine blog that $1.00 from every sale of the 2009 City Dog calendar goes to Reading with Rover, a nonprofit for literacy that combines, dogs, kids, and reading. 
• Ernie Garcia wrote an article about a program in Yonkers (NY) that gave 9,000 books to kids Kindergarten to third grade. The package also included materials for parents about the importance of reading. They are raising money to buy more books. You can read more details in his article on LuHud.com. We found this via  yourstreet.com

All Wrapped Up Wrapping an empty display case didn't start out as an event, but it has gotten everyone (read: kids) talking. Head over to Bookends to see Cindy Dobrez' post about the Holiday-wrapped display case and see how it's creating buzz. Very clever.

New Places to Visit

Easy Readers Blog - Anastasia Suen, author, educator, Cybils Easy Reader panel organizer, and blogger extraordinaire (6 blogs!), has created a blog just for Easy Readers. Visit Easy to Read to find books for developing readers. You'll LOVE her blogroll categories! She helps you with fiction v. nonfiction, as well as grouping them by reader type:  early, emergent, and transitional. Be sure to stop by Kid Tested, Librarian Approved for Maureen's interview with Anastasia.

News, Views, and Interesting Tidbits

A Gift from MrsP.com Both Jen and I have talked about MrsP.com, a website for children that celebrates reading and books, in previous Literacy Roundups. Here's something new: Stop by the site to hear Mrs. P. read a version of O. Henry's The Gift of the Magi. From their publicist to Jen: "We hope that the story brings a message of hope during this recession-heavy holiday season. Children can access the book by simply going to the site and clicking on the small pile of books at Mrs. P’s feet. Understanding the importance of reading and children, I thought you might be interested in this information." Note: If you're starting from scratch, it takes a couple of steps to get from the homepage to Mrs. P. reading by the fire with her pile of books.

In her Friday Afternoon Visits: December 5 edition, Jen pulled together some wonderful discussions and ideas about how we select books, gender issues and books, and reading with kids over at Jen Robinson's Book Page. Several of the posts she mentioned are especially valuable when it comes to transforming emerging readers into highly successful ones. They're worth repeating...

• LiteraBuss has some advice about how to quickly determine the reading level of a book when you don't have explicit "I Can Read" levels on the cover. The post mentions the "5 Finger Rule" (and variants) which we talked about here. Here's the bottom line: "All the book levels in the world won't do you any good if that child can't pick up the book and read it." The LiteraBuss discussion of measuring fluency (speed) v. comprehension is interesting, particularly when you read it in conjunction with this OpEd piece in the Savannah Morning News.  Author Michael Moore (no, not the director, a professor at Georgia Southern) cites a Reading First study that says "kids know phonics, but not meanings."
• Everyone loves to have stories read aloud, and it is a great way to engage kids in reading. Head over to the Reading Zone, to see Sarah's ideas for books for Tweens
• Over at The Well-Read Child, author Maxwell Eaton presents 10 Tips for the Parents of Ricky the Reluctant Reader. He use comic strip form to set out each point. [That is so Alexander Pope ... which, I know, no reluctant reader would get, but it is always cool.]
• In a guest post on the First Book blog, Tina Chovanec, manager of Reading Rockets.org, recommends pairing the book with a promise (or two): a promise to read together, a promise to learn together, a promise to your child's teacher, and a promise to make the world a better place. You can read all the details (and shout-outs to great bloggers like Miss Rumphius and the PBS bookfinder) here.
• In her newest Book Whisperer post for Education Week, Donalynn Miller uses the Twilight book/movie relationship to remind us that we're selecting books the kids will like. Listen to their preferences, don't superimpose yours. Two great points (connected by elipses): "If we want to encourage students to read, we must validate some of their less-than highbrow reading choices when they do ... Teenagers arguing the merits of a book on a Friday night—how can we not celebrate that?"

Write On! Anabel Marsh reminds us that the National Year of Reading is coming to an end.  Read her National Year of Reading - December post at Anabel's Children's Literature blog to get ideas that match this month's theme: Write the Future.

• Look no further than Sarah's post at the Reading Zone to learn about how writing influences a student. She cites a National Survey of Student Engagement study about how writing leads to deeper learning. Here's a quote from the USA Today article: "The NSSE report found [that] students engage in a variety of positive activities. They are more likely to analyze, synthesize and integrate ideas from various sources. They grapple more with course ideas both in and out of the classroom. And they report greater personal, social, practical and academic development."
• Be sure to stop by A Year of Reading , to read Franki and Mary Lee's post about the future of reading. They introduce us to some of the tech-oriented literacy blogs they've been following, and give us their thoughts on 21st Century literacies. "We love books and children's literature. And it will always be the anchor of our work. But we can't be comfortable being literacy teachers today without expanding our notion of what it means to be literate in the 21st Century and to learn from experts who have a different set of expertise." Mary Lee posted an update yesterday.
• Looking for a reading-writing gift? Then read Tricia's post about Gifts for Readers and Writers at the Miss Rumphius Effect.

Open for Discussion Tim Shanahan had an interesting post on his Literacy Learning blog that looks at what he thinks are the gaps in President-elect Obama's education plan. The value of the post is in the facts that it brings out about the state of literacy and education. Here's one: "For the first time in U.S. educational history, increases in numbers of years of schooling have not led to gains in literacy attainment." To add to the discussion, you can read about John Corcoran's new book The Bridge to Literacy at this post on the International Reading Association blog. Maybe they should check out Susan Israel's upcoming book about Vocabulary Lists and activities for the Pre-K to 2 classroom. We found the library card at the University of Nevada (Reno) library.

Book Safety Over at Literacy and Reading News, Brian Scott has an article about how poor literacy levels are a safety hazard for Canadian workers. He cites analysis from a Canadian Board study which concludes that "four in 10 Canadians in the working-age population do not have the literacy skills needed to perform most jobs well."

Holiday Boredom We haven't even wrapped gifts yet, but someone out the International Reading Association blog is already anticipating holiday boredom. In this post last week, Louise Ash suggests we keep ReadWriteThink.org in mind when the kids start searching for something to do.

Recent Grant Awards

• The National Center for Family Literacy has received a $300,000 grant from the MetLife Foundation. The grant will give the NCFL a chance to "explore, enrich and create partnerships between family literacy efforts and community colleges. The goal of this new project, made possible by MetLife Foundation, is to help provide a smooth transition for students from literacy programs to higher education." There are plenty of statistics on how graduating high school students are not ready for college and need to take remedial reading classes. We read the announcement on the NCFL blog.
• Spread the Word - Nevada received a $10,000 grant from the Mattel Children's Foundation. From the press release: "[This grant will allow us]to continue the mission of adopting elementary schools in the Clark County School District deemed at-risk, in order to serve the disadvantaged children and their families in southern Nevada. After the adoption, new and gently used books donated by individuals, community organizations, local businesses, and corporations are distributed to the at-risk youth. At this time, sixteen elementary schools benefit from monthly book distributions." Read the full press release here.

Yum! Yum! The last word this week goes to Natacha Poech. The National Children's Book and Literacy Alliance blog had a post about finding just-the-right book for kids. Natacha, a librarian and bookbuyer offers advice on selecting books. This says it all: "Think of books in terms of chocolate mousse and a Hershey Kiss. There are moments for both!”

Have a great reading week ... and if you've got reading or book ideas, we'd love to hear them. Just leave a comment.

First, Happy Fourth of July. We've been very busy in the Tub these past few days. If you haven't stopped by, head over to Scrub-a-Dub-Tub to read our Book Bags and Reading Ahead columns for May/June. We've got the Books for Ages 0 to 4, Books for Ages 5 to 8, and Bilingual Books posts up. Tomorrow the Books for Ages 9 to 12 go up. I am really tickled with that column ... almost all of the reviews include quotes by our student readers.

BIG Round of Applause To those who participated in Dewey's Read-a-Thon: congrats. I hope you still have enough good vision left to read the Round-up. If you missed the Read-a-thon, mark your calendar for October.

Sidebar: Unless otherwise noted, these we found these tidbits through GoogleAlerts.

Limited Time Offer Little Willow is blogging over at GuysLitWire today. Check out the sidebar for some great reads. We read Bildungsroman every day.

Tell me a Story Over at the Information Literacy blog, there is a great post about Storytelling as a tool for encouraging literacy. We learn our vocabulary through speaking, and reciting a story is something we can do without a book. Kids tell stories all the time – it is called pretend play! Take advantage of the opportunity and play with your kids.

Print & Preschoolers The Journal of Early Childhood Literacy (vol 8, no 2) has an article that sets out the results of a study with 38 parents of children involved in Head Start programs. You must be a SAGE Journals Online subscriber to read the whole article, but this excerpt of Jacqueline Lynch's précis is available free: "This research may suggest the important role of pre-school and particular parent—child activities in developing children's early print concepts."

Contrast and Compare: Pre-K There is an interesting commentary by Liz Willen for the Early Stories blog. She offers some interesting observations and links to studies, news articles, etc. on the impact and importance of strong pre-K programs.

Pomp, Circumstance, and Apple Juice The Newark Advocate published an article about the literacy gains of the first all-day Kindergarten classes in Newark City Schools. Worth quoting: "Based on the assessments, 67.7 percent of kindergarten students in Newark are reading at a mid-first- to second-grade reading level. That is up from 44.3 percent in 2007." We found this lead in Louise Ash's post at Reading Today Daily, the IRA blog.

Dogs love books, too Maya Spector reminds us that one way to help reluctant or struggling readers is to create a dog-child partnership. In this post on the PACL blog, Maya tells us that the Palo Alto City Library is bringing back the Paws to Read program because the pilot was such a hit. This is something you can encourage at home or make the centerpiece of a neighborhood book club.

More Summer Reading Ideas Last Thursday, Good Morning America (GMA) took its turn at offering kids reading suggestions for the summer. The Reading Zone wrote about it in this post, and offered that unlike many lists for middle school and YA readers, this one has newer titles, AND the hosts offered that adults would like some of the YA titles, too. In the post, you can link to the GMA-recommended list, or the Reading Zone's own list, courtesy of MotherReader's 48-hour Book Challenge. She also posted her 2007-2008Class Book Lists drawn from the titles she shared with her 6^th grade class.

Taking Bids GreenStyleMom and Shannon tell us about their effort to raise funds for the Children's Literacy Center (Colorado). They are soliciting items for a silent auction. The proceeds of the event go to providing one-on-one tutoring to more than 1,000 children each year. Read Shannon's post to learn more and/or donate.

Time to Face(book) Reality We read several posts about this article in the (UK) Telegraph that suggests teachers need to embrace, not ban, social networking sites. Their analysis: Teachers should take advantage of their students' interests in Facebook and Bebo as a tool to help them develop communication skills. The Reading Rockets website picked up the link and added an article in its News section; and we saw it in Louise Ash's post for Reading Today Daily. Note: Louise Ash referenced "Childnet" as a source, but we don't know whether it was Childnet.com or Childnet.org.

Lucky Find Last week, in the midst of trying to check the weather, I found libraryspot.com featured as the Site of the Day on Refdesk.com. The home page is like the Reference Desk we all know and love, and you'll find directories of K-12 libraries, national libraries, and reference sources for anything from acronyms to zip codes. I bookmarked it!

Our Good Neighbors Do it Again In this post at the ParentClub blog you can read about the One Million Reading Hours, a LeapFrog Canada Literacy Campaign. You can also read Brian Scott's article on the subject at Literacy and Reading News.

More Bad Economic News There is an interesting piece in Literacy and Reading News about how low literacy is threatening Canada's economic future. Here is the article by Brian Scott that lays out the ABC Canada Literacy Foundation analysis. I had a similar blurb with a UK perspective in the 11 June Reading Round-Up. Literacy is more than pleasure reading, it's basic economics!

Don't Point fingers Here's the headline: "1 in 5 Parents Do Not See the Point of Reading to Their Children." In this article, Brian Scott lays out an analysis of parenting behaviors vis-à-vis reading. All Top Books conducted a survey of more than 640 UK parents ... but I'm betting the results would be the same on this side of the pond. Here are two that really struck me.

• 1 in 5 parents do not see the benefit of reading to a child before they can sit up, walk, or talk.
• 1 in 4 parents either do not enjoy reading, or struggle with reading and so put no time aside for reading with their child.
• More than 50% of parents spend a maximum of 8.5 minutes reading with their child each day.
• More than 34% spend no time reading to their children at all.

Can someone analyze how much of much of their annuity will be spent on their unemployable-because-illiterate children when the kids are STILL living at home at age 35 (see article above)? [deep breath, 1-2-3] You can read Brian's full article in Literacy and Reading News, the literacynews.com blog. In that same article, you'll find a link to the UK Literacy Trust and a very simply presented Every Home a Reading Home campaign.

Data Overload The non-partisan Center on Education Policy has released a report that analyzes the testing data for the 2006-2007 school year from all 50 US states. The questions: Has Student Achievement Increased Since 2002? And Has the achievement gap narrowed? The point is to evaluate the effectiveness of the NLCB, which went into effect in 2002. Go to the Center's website to read the full report or the press release. You can also read a quick summary in this article by Louise Ash for Reading Today Daily (the IRA blog). They don't make it easy to find the conclusions, but essentially, there are positive gains in both reading and math, particularly at the elementary and middle school levels (except 8^th grade).

Our Elected Representatives John Micklos has posts for both the House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees votes to eliminate funding for Reading First. You can read more information at the Education Week website. You can go there directly, or link to it through Reading Today Daily (click links above). Needless to say, the Reading First Advisory Panel has some words of their own for Congress. We read John's summaries in the 6/24/2008 and 6/26/2008 editions of Reading Today Daily, the International Reading Association (IRA) blog, then went to Education Week to see the full scoop. You can also read the Reading First response in this article by Kathleen Kennedy Manzo for Education Week.

Size Matters If the title doesn't get you – "Brain Size, not Gender, May Be Key to Reading Ability" – then this might: brain size accounts for why women excel in reading. Before you go wagging your finger at your brother/husband/significant other and scream "SEE?!", remember: there are women who DON'T like to read, too. Once you get past the fact the intentional lure (read: sound bite), you find a rather interesting analysis about reading and learning … and an opportunity to stop stereotyping boys just because they're boys. Still, I think we need more women in Congress. We read about this in Louise Ash's post for Reading Today Daily (the IRA blog), but you'll find more detail in the Press-Enterprise article by Laurie Lucas.

Sally May Get a New Jersey If you live in New Jersey and you're a 501(c)(3) non-profit you could be. Verizon customers who participated in the company's Check Into Literacy program have made it possible for nonprofit literacy organizations in New Jersey are now eligible to receive a total of $325,000 in grants. You can read more details in Brian Scott's article in Literacy and Reading News, the literacynews.com blog or you can go to Verizon for application forms.

School Bells Yes, I know if feels like summer just started, but … school will start again soon. Why not order school supplies before you go on vacation? Then you don't have to think about it! Anne-Marie at My Readable Feast has a nicely detailed (and very Mom-logical) post about using EZschoolsupplies.com to save money on school supplies AND raise funds for your kids' school.

A Lifetime of Learning in 11 Weeks.  Listen to this Wonder  Year's Radio podcast to get some great ideas to keep kids learning -- and having fun. Christina's guest host is Annette Yen from Relaxed Homeschooling, who has some great ideas to make learning a family affair this summer. No, you don't have to be a home schooler (or even have a structured learning plan) to benefit.

A Summer Bookmark. You'll also want to head over to A Year of Reading, to get a list of summer-reading resources. For those who don't know this blog, A Year of Reading is a blog written by two teachers.  Who better to know how to keep kids moving forward?

Another Summer Bookmark. Be sure to keep Learning Beyond the Classroom handy this summer. The International Reading Association and National Council of Teachers of English created readwritehink.org as a resource of language-arts-related material for teachers (K to 12). Learning Beyond the Classroom offers a lot of the same information -- materials, activities, books -- but its for parents and non-teachers (such as camp counselors). Visit the site and you'll find 's a set of companion pages to find activities and instruction based on your child's age.  Our thanks to Jen Robinson at Jen Robinson's Book Page for the lead. Read her full post (with the press release) here.

Keep Reading to Them! Thanks to Wizards Wireless for the lead to this article in the Kentucky Post about inmates in a Western Kentucky detention center who record children's books to connect with their children.

A New Review Outlet.  Last week, Dewey (The Hidden Side of a Leaf) launched a new weekly forum for bloggers. It's called Weekly Geek and its easy to join in. There will be a new theme every week, and the "entry" fee is just your willingness to participate and contribute to the conversation.   Learn more about the feature and get all your questions answered here. Thanks to The Well Read Child for letting the kidlit blog world know about this new venture. BTW - This week's theme is about comparing books you've read.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words. I don't think we say it often enough: literacy isn't just about putting letters into a sequence and memorizing that sequence (read: word). It's also about exploring language. That's what makes wordless books so wonderful. Jill over at The Well Read Child just wrote a review of Wave by Suzy Lee. Here is the place to read her review of this book ... perfectly timed for summer. This line from her review made me want to find this book: "I have to tell you that this wordless book nearly rendered me speechless the first time I flipped through it."

You're a Winner! Here's a youth writing contest that I had forgotten about! Kids Can Publish University has free monthly contests that rewards winners with a published byline. KCPU promotes literacy and a love of writing and illustrating. Source: "Leading Kids on the 'Write Track'," by John Micklos, Reading Today Daily, International Reading Association blog, posted 5/1/2008.

More Proof that Reading is Critical to Learning. A May 1, 2008 article by Loise Ash in Reading Today Daily tells us about a program where kids spend the first two hours of each day working on reading.  Source: "Two Hours of Reading, Writing, Leads to Literacy Gains," by Louise Ash, Reading Today Daily, International Reading Association blog, posted 5/1/2008.

Last week I started organizing my virtual life ... and finally "launched" my Google Reader. It was a wonderful journey, with lots of hours spent reading through all the posts I felt like I "should have been" reading all along.

The result is a new column here at What Happens Next. Every Monday I'll put together a collection of reading- and literacy-related posts from the previous week. When it comes to reading, there is no single place or no single person with "the" answer, so I'm happy to share other people's thoughts ... and give them all the credit.


Turn Off TV Week. You can Read about Turn Off TV Week at the official site, or, better yet, go over to A Wrung Sponge and see some of Cloudscome's great ideas.

Reading with Kids: A Gender Gap? On Saturday, the Well-Read Child talked about a recent poll in the UK that focused on whether/not dads read with their kids. Jill offers her perspective on parents sharing a book with a kid. Read it here.

Audio Books: An Argument worth listening to. Back in March, Jen Robinson wrote about a new Audio Booksite for kids books called Audible Kids. Here is her post. I missed it. [Remember, I didn't have my blog reader set up!] Thankfully, I learned about it when I read Jill's post about her experiences. I am an admitted audio book skeptic. Now I'm not so sure. If I wear my read-aloud-to-your-kids hat, is it all that different? Audible Kids also has a page of free downloads to promote Reading is Fundamental and literacy.