Reading Rockets Newsletter April 2011

If you are having problems viewing images in this e-mail, click here to view it in your Web browser. April 2011 Newsletter In Focus: Early literacy development Books & Authors: Interview with Marilyn Singer | Poetry books and resources | Día Ideas for Educators: Student blogging | Original documents resources | Citizen writer contest Ideas for Parents: Measure up! science activities | The new Lorax family literacy bag | National Geo for wee ones Research & News: Helping kids with autism connect with what they read | The birth of a word In Focus: Early literacy development Sounds and Symbols One of the most important skills for a young pre-reader is the ability to recognize and manipulate the individual sounds in words — a skill called 'phonological awareness.' A child who struggles may be at risk for learning to read later. Word play — including rhyming, segmenting, and blending — is a very effective way to build these skills. Strategies for building phonological awareness: Blending and Segmenting Games > Elkonin Boxes > Onset/Rime Games > Rhyming Games > Parents can weave word play into everyday activities with their child. For this North Carolina family, a bedtime story or a neighborhood walk is the perfect time for word games and rhyming. Watch "Fun with Phonemes" video clip > In this video clip, two-and-a-half-year old Mira is just beginning to learn a powerful new skill — making the link between letters that she can see and touch and the sounds that she hears. Watch "Becoming Aware of Print" video clip > Talk Matters Young children who perform better than their peers in reading do so for several reasons, but one of the most critical is this — lots of family talk. Far too many young children come to school with poor oral language skills because they just don't know enough words. The good news is that helping a young child is simple. By engaging kids in rich stories and having meaningful conversations with them, you — as a parent or a daycare provider or a preschool teacher — can help improve their oral language skills, which will eventually help them become better readers. This 60-minute webcast, featuring early literacy experts Todd R. Risley, Sharon Landesman Ramey, and Julie Washington, stresses the importance of working with young children early to develop language and pre-reading skills. Go to webcast > When the Child Is the Storyteller With interactive — or dialogic — read alouds, teacher and students engage in a lively discussion about the characters and plot of the story. The teacher becomes the guide, asking open-ended "who, why, what if…" questions — and the kids become the storytellers, actively exploring their own understanding of the text and strengthening oral language and vocabulary skills. Try this three-step technique for interactive readalouds > Watch "Reading as Dialogue" to see dialogic reading in action > RTI Goes to Pre-K Can teachers and parents of preschoolers identify learning problems early enough to prevent problems later in school? The Recognition & Response model helps adults know what to look for and how to help, so that later remediation and special education may not be necessary. See article > Find many more resources on early literacy development > Books & Authors Mirror, Mirror: Our Video Interview with Marilyn Singer Marilyn Singer has written all kinds of great books for children and young adults — picture books, fairy tales, mysteries, non-fiction, and novels — but poetry is her favorite. Singer is on a mission to "knock poetry off its pedestal" and to introduce kids to the pleasing rhythms and powerful emotion of poems, but also to encourage kids to express themselves through verse. Watch interview > Rhyming Not Required From the silliness of Around the World on Eighty Legs to the comfort of Stevenson's classic A Child's Garden of Verses (newly illustrated), to the cleverness of Lemonade & Other Poems Squeezed from a Single Word, to the rhythmic verse of The Great Migration — this new collection of poetry books is our gift to you during National Poetry Month, ready to unwrap. See poetry booklist > Poetic April Celebrate the pure delight of poetry in all its forms. We've gathered together activities for parents and teachers, video interviews with our favorite children's poets, recommended books and anthologies, fun online games (check out Magnetic Poetry) and a peek at what's happening in the kidlitosphere for the next 30 days. See our National Poetry Month resources > El día de los niños/ El día de los libros, April 30 Borrowing from a traditional Mexican holiday, el día de los niños/ el día de los libros is a day to celebrate children, literacy, and culture — and a reminder that sharing the joy of reading is important everyday. Go to Día section > Send a Día e-card > Ideas for Educators Kid Blogs Writing is hard work and many kids need extra encouragement to do it. But…if there's an opportunity to share their ideas beyond the classroom and get feedback from peers, that can inspire the reluctant writer. One way to do this is through blogging. KidBlog.org is a safe, simple platform for student blogging, where students can publish posts and participate in discussions within a secure classroom blogging community, all under the full control of the teacher. Go to website > Related news article: They're Learning to Write, and They've Got Readers The writings of Lisa Christen's third-grade class have made ripples across the world. They've inspired a late-night hankering for ice cream in Ohio. They've scored a rave review from Nottingham, England, smack dab in the middle of Robin Hood country. And they've received underwater greetings from the depths of a coral reef off the Australian coast. It's all thanks to the classroom blogs the students at Marion W. Savage Elementary in Savage launched this year. "They now have a worldwide forum instead of an audience of one," Christen said. "They see themselves as writers — real writers." Read full article > Nothing Beats the Original Footnote is a treasure trove of original source material — more than 70 million historical documents for teachers and students to explore. Browse by historical era or use the powerful search tools. Featured collections include The Civil War, the Vietnam Wall, the Native American Collection, and a Newspapers Archive. Go to website > Our New Writing Contest: Citizen Writer Are you a mapmaker? Poet or songwriter? Passionate about your community? Our new writing contest is inspired by civics, citizenship, and our communities. We want students to think and learn more about America's people, places, and ideals as they work on one of four prompts. The prompts incorporate a wide range of genres — and even some visual literacy. Entries are due by April 30th. Learn more about Citizen Writer > Ideas for Parents Measure Up! Hands-on measurement activities are fun to explore with children. Armed with interesting new vocabulary words, measuring tools (not just rulers and teaspoons…), and knowledge, your young learner will soon be measuring everything in sight! (From our new Literacy in the Sciences series; in English and Spanish). Go to article > For more resources, visit our Literacy in the Sciences section > The Lorax: Our New Family Literacy Bag Calling all tree huggers! Our new set of family activities is centered around two classic books: Dr. Seuss' The Lorax and Tell Me, Tree by Gail Gibbons. Fill a nature journal with your up-close observations of trees, create your own tree identification book, write or record your own tree tale, or celebrate National Poetry Month with a community "poetree." See Lorax literacy bag > National Geo for Wee Ones This very kid-friendly site is bursting with fun facts about animals, games, crafts, recipes, science experiments, videos, an online version of Young Explorer (including teacher guides), and a lively parent blog written by Jane of the Jungle Gym. Visit National Geographic website > Research & News Helping Kids with Autism Connect with What They Read Six-year-old Arik is reading through his books with lightning speed — but is he understanding it all? Using a technique developed for autistic children like Arik, child psychologists Dr. Stanley Greenspan and Dr. Stuart Shanker believe that they can help Arik's comprehension by expanding his emotional connection to the words. (An excerpt from Reading and the Brain, part of our Launching Young Readers series) Watch "From Emotion to Comprehension" > April is National Autism Awareness Month. Visit the Autism Society website for ideas on how to be involved. The Birth of a Word MIT researcher Deb Roy — a cognitive scientist who designs machines that learn to communicate in human-like ways — wanted to understand how his infant son learned language. So he wired up his house with video cameras to catch nearly every moment of his son's life, then parsed 90,000 hours of the video. Using something similar to time-lapse photography, you can listen to his son move from "gaga" to "water" within six months. Incredible, right? Based on this enormous amount of data, Roy is able to use technology to model ways in which we modify our speech that help babies learn words. Watch video on TED > Little Red Riding Hood: "In my hood / skipping through the wood / carrying a basket / picking berries to eat — / juicy and sweet / what a treat! / But a girl / mustn't dawdle. / After all, Grandma's waiting." The Wolf: "After all, Grandma's waiting, / mustn't dawdle . . . / But a girl! / What a treat — / juicy and sweet, / picking berries to eat, / carrying a basket, / skipping through the wood / in my 'hood." — From Marilyn Singer's book of "reverso" poems Mirror, Mirror: A Book of Reversible Verse All the best from Reading Rockets Noel Gunther Executive Director Christian Lindstrom Director, Learning Media Shalini Anand Technical Web Manager Bridget Brady Web and Video Coordinator Tina Chovanec Director, Reading Rockets Kelly Deckert Associate Manager, Online Media Ashley Gilleland Producer Joanne Meier, Ph.D. Research Consultant Maria Salvadore Children's Literature Consultant Laura Schreiber Project Associate Rachael Walker Outreach Consultant Newsletter editor: Tina Chovanec About Reading Rockets Reading Rockets is a national educational service of WETA, the flagship public television and radio station in the nation's capital. The goal of the project is to provide information on how young kids learn to read, why so many struggle, and how caring adults can help. Learn about easy ways you can link to us to let others know about the many free resources available from Reading Rockets. Reading Rockets is funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs. Send your questions, comments, or suggestions to readingrockets@weta.org. Our mailing address is WETA/Reading Rockets, 2775 S. Quincy St., Arlington, VA 22206. We look forward to hearing from you! Tell a friend about Reading Rockets News. If you received this message from a friend, you can sign up here to receive Reading Rockets News. This message was sent to aliatasbpp.disorder@blogger.com. Visit your User Login page to modify your email communication preferences or update your personal profile. 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