In Focus: Summer learning Reading Rockets has packed a "virtual beach bag" of activities and resources for teachers to help families get ready for summer and to launch students to fun, enriching summertime experiences. Dip into our bag to create your own Top 10 list of great summer resources to stuff into backpacks during the final weeks of school. Discover links to reading incentive programs, interactive science-focused sites like NASA Quest and National Geographic Kids, safe blogging and kid book review sites, summer gardening projects, how-to's on starting a neighborhood book club, and much more.
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4 easy-to-read articles ready to print and share with families: Find out if your public library is part of the Collaborative Summer Library Program, a grassroots effort to provide high-quality summer reading programs for kids. The theme for 2011 is One World, Many Stories. Our sister site, ColorÃn Colorado, offers tips for parents in English and in Spanish about visiting the local library. Or check out our Top 9 reasons to rediscover your public library. Three families, three different summer experiences — all rich in literacy activities and hands-on learning. In our Launching Young Readers program, you'll meet parents, teachers, and researchers who are discovering the best ways to keep kids' brains active during the long summer break — and avoid the 'summer slump.'
Watch show > Find many additional resources for teachers, librarians, and families in our Summer Reading section  |  |
Books & Authors Mysteries, historical fiction, Wild West yarns, the life and times of a girl named Alice, scary tales, memoir — prolific writer Phyllis Reynolds Naylor never writes the same type of book twice in a row. That's how she keeps the work fresh for herself and her readers. After publishing more than 135 books, including the Newbery winner Shiloh and the best-selling Alice series, she truly lives and breathes the life of a writer. Naylor's love for words and storytelling began with her parents reading aloud to her every night, until she was well into her teens. "It was like feeding time for the imagination," she says.
Watch interview > | | Ah summer! The perfect season for cool drinks, secret reading places, and a towering stack of books inviting kids to "enter here...." Our children's literature expert, Maria Salvadore, has carefully crafted this year's big summer booklist — to keep you and your child reading (and listening) all summer long. It's ready to print and take to your local library or bookstore.
Browse summer booklist > From food (Bee-Bim Bop!) to folktales (Yeh-Shen: A Cinderella Story): discover the rich culture, humor, and traditions of Japan, Korea, China, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Hawaii in these beautifully-told stories.
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Ideas for Educators Late spring and warmer weather means more sports, more time outside, more yawning from sleepy kids, standardized tests, and more planning for end of the year activities like school carnivals and fun fairs….but even with all that, there is still LOTS of instructional time left this year. Teachers need to teach until the end. With one-third of our fourth graders reading below a basic level, there's not a minute to waste. Here are a few activities that may keep you teaching (and them learning) all the way to the end.
Read blog post > | | Our newest family literacy bag, Rocks, taps into a child's instinctive curiosity about the natural world and a love of collecting, sorting, and identifying stuff. In this bag, you'll find recommendations for paired fiction and nonfiction books about rocks, and simple hands-on activities for parents and kids to try together — including "curating" a personal collection and exploring wordplay and poetic form. Our literacy bags are ready to download, print, and share with your students' families.
See 'Rocks' literacy bag > | | Whether you're considering an 'extreme classroom makeover' for the fall or just enriching your learning spaces, izzyshare provides a wealth of ideas and inspiration with its photo library of classrooms, libraries, learning centers, bulletin boards, Daily 5 ideas, and more. Browse the site by grade level or theme, and become a member of the izzyshare community to add your own ideas to the library. A wonderful new free resource for teachers, homeschoolers, and parents!
Go to website > | | Inspired by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, iCivics is an online education project designed to teach civics and encourage students to be active participants in our democracy. Teachers can discover webquests and lesson plans built around themed topics, including the three branches of government, citizenship and participation, and the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Kids can dive right into the interactive games — challenges like Argument Wars, Supreme Decision, and Cast Your Vote will stretch their knowledge and critical thinking skills.
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Ideas for Parents Most children are able to listen to simple stories, songs, and rhymes by the time they are one to two years old. However, every child is unique and has an individual rate of development. Learn more about the developmental milestones for hearing, understanding, and talking — and where to get help if you are concerned.
Go to article > Find more resources in our Speech, Language, and Hearing section Science and math explorations provide your growing reader with a chance to record all kinds of observations. Young children love to keep their own special journals and fill them with drawings, scribbles, sketches, notes, and graphs. You can date each entry and watch as your child's observational and recording skills grow along with your child. (In English and Spanish)
Go to article > Find more Literacy in the Sciences resources > Awash in choices for the family iPod or iPad? This may be the site for you: 'Moms with Apps' advocates for the healthy intersection of kids and family life with technology. Find recommendations and full write-ups on high-quality apps for reading, special needs, creativity, family fun, and more. And check out AppFriday, the weekly link exchange that features discounted (or free) family-friendly apps.
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Research & News This report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation finds that students who don't read proficiently by third grade are four times more likely to leave without a diploma than proficient readers. The report is a longitudinal study of nearly 4,000 students and their parents. The report breaks down for the first time the likelihood of graduation by different reading skill levels and poverty experiences.
Go to report > | | This Stanford Center for the Study of Poverty research brief reviews the evidence linking early childhood poverty to long-lasting negative outcomes — including basic literacy skills such as phonemic awareness and letter recognition — and discusses strategies to lessen the effects of poverty-induced stress on vulnerable families with young children. Emerging research in neuroscience and developmental psychology suggests that poverty early in a child's life may be particularly harmful because the astonishingly rapid development of young children's brains leaves them sensitive to environmental conditions.
Go to report > | | Today's parents, academics, policymakers and practitioners are scrambling to keep up with the rapid expansion of media use by children and youth for ever-larger portions of their waking hours. This report by Sesame Workshop and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center takes a fresh look at data emerging from studies undertaken by Sesame Workshop, independent scholars, foundations, and market researchers on the media habits of young children. The report reviews seven recent studies about young children and their ownership and use of media. By focusing on very young children and analyzing multiple studies over time, the report arrives at a new, balanced portrait of children's media habits.
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Summer is a vaulting thing
It summer-saults its way past spring
Turns cartwheels, backflips
Has a ball
Until it tumbles into fall — From Summersaults by Douglas Florian
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