In Focus: Active Summer Learning Fresh Air Reading and Writing July is National Parks and Recreation Month. Discover some ways to strengthen your child's reading and writing muscles while exploring the great outdoors this month — and all summer long. Outdoor Explorations >
Recording Observations: Journals and Field Notes >
Author Sy Montgomery talks about keeping a field journal > 
Use Summer Fun to Build Background Knowledge >
Books About Our National Parks >
Reading Maps >
It's not always easy to keep the learning going during the long summer months. Listen in as Wendy Bostic shares a few of the ways she makes sure that her two young kids, Ashley and C.J., have a lively, enriching summer — through active conversations, lots of reading, regular visits to the library, and day trips to the museum and botanical garden.
Watch video >
Dip into our newest parent-child activity pack: Cooking! You'll find imaginative hands-on activities centered around a paired fiction book (Easy as Pie) and nonfiction book (How Did That Get in My Lunchbox?). It's the perfect relaxed activity for parents and kids (or caregivers and kids) to do together on a summer's day.
Family Literacy Bag: Cooking > See also: Green Eggs and Ham literacy bag >
How would you like to dine with Sam-I-Am, the Grinch, the Lorax, and the Sneetches? Try these fun reading and writing activities inspired by the delightful imagination of Dr. Seuss.
Dinner in Seussville >
Invite children into the kitchen with stories about food and recipes to prepare. This collection of picture books for kids ages 0-9 features a little bit of cultural history, humor, and kitchen chaos. Bon appétit!
Cooking Up Fun booklist >
Books & Authors Seymour Simon has published more than 200 kids' books on topics as wide-ranging and complex as oceans, planets, trains, tornadoes, volcanoes, gorillas, earthquakes, and the human heart. Simon says you can observe nature anywhere — even in vacant lots ("jungles for tiny animals") like the ones in the Bronx where he grew up. Simon's books are accessible and endlessly fascinating — especially to formerly "reluctant" readers who soak up nonfiction like sponges.
Watch interview > Cartography for kids, camp songs, and what happens one hot night in the city when the electricity goes out … browse our newest summer booklist for curious kids.
See booklist >
Ideas for Educators This school year, bring the park to your classroom! The National Park Service Traveling Trunks Program provides a wonderful interactive learning experience for kids. Take a virtual field trip to the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in Kansas, the Nez Perce National Historical Park in Idaho, or Cape Lookout National Seashore in North Carolina. Each trunk includes background information about the park, curriculum guides, activities, games, books, and other resources for active learning. If you unlock the trunk for the Cape Lookout Lighthouses, here's what you'll find on the inventory list: 1 lighthouse keeper's hat, 2 women's bonnets, 1 box of dominoes, 1 handkerchief doll … Check the website for participating parks.
Go to website >  |  | Teachers spend lots of time teaching strategies to students to aid with their reading comprehension. Our classroom strategy section is chock full of ideas for integrating strategies into content area lessons. The blog Catching Readers Before They Fall, recently had a good post that contains six questions teachers should ask themselves if they notice that students are not using the strategies we've taught them to use. Among the questions: Are students in appropriate texts? Was my modeling explicit enough? Who needed this particular strategy? Who didn't? Did I provide enough guided practice?
Read more > This K-12 iPod & iPad user group blog gives educators a peek inside real classrooms and school libraries where the new handheld devices are being used effectively to motivate reluctant and struggling readers and boost academic achievement among all students. The associated wiki focuses on technical issues related to using the devices.
iPod User Group Blog > iPod & iPad User Group Wiki >
Ideas for Parents If your kids love visiting our National Parks, Monuments and Historic Sites, this on-line Junior Ranger program from the National Park Service is for you. There are more than 50 games to choose from, including dendrochronology (learn to tell time with tree rings), the dinosaur diet matching game, map reading, how to pack a dog sled, and much more. Join the WebRangers Community where you can share pictures and stories and earn rewards.
Go to website > | | The Urban Bird Sounds Project is a great resource to introduce kids of all ages (and their parents) to the joys of bird watching and bird listening. Kids from the Codman Academy Charter Public School in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood wrote and narrated this online audio guide to urban birds (with help from the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology). Listen to the sounds of the Mourning Dove, Rock Pigeon, House Sparrow, and lots more familiar city and backyard birds. The site also includes teaching materials for the classroom.
Go to website and listen > | | Get the basics on how the iPad and educational apps can jumpstart learning in kids with disabilities. The iPad provides an interactive experience with multi-sensory feedback that reinforces your child's understanding of important concepts like time, sequence, and cause and effect — and strengthens communication and fine motor skills. Adaptive features such as closed-captioning, zoom, and voiceover provide additional support. The article concludes with a list of websites to help you learn more about the iPad and various apps that are geared towards special needs.
See article >
Research & News Families Matter: Designing Media for a Digital Age, a new report from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, focuses on two complementary studies that document how families with young children are integrating digital media into the rhythm of daily life. Results from a survey of more than 800 parents of children ages 3 through 10 reveal how parents nationwide feel about raising children in a digital age. In-depth case studies provide further insight into these statistics, probing how parent attitudes toward technology, along with family values, routines, and structures, are shaping young children's experiences using digital media.
Read full report > | | A new study that looked at the home environments of more than 1,850 children from households at or below the federal poverty line showed that factors such as levels of shared reading, exposure to frequent and varied adult speech, and access to children's books had an impact on school readiness skills. "As a parent, it is never too early to engage your child in learning," said Amber Story, a social psychologist and deputy director of the National Science Foundation's Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences, which funded the study. "This research suggests that the degree to which parents read and talk to their infant; point and label objects in the environment; and provide engaging books and toys when their child is only 15 months old can have long-lasting effects on the infant's language skills years later."
Read article > | | Tell us what you think of our new mobile website using the "Send us feedback" link on Reading Rockets Mobile, and you'll be entered to win children's book prize pack — including an autographed children's book. Sharing gets rewarded, too! Tweet about Reading Rockets mobile to be entered for a chance to win an iPod.
Find out more about the contest > "If a child is to keep his inborn sense of wonder,
he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it,
rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery
of the world we live in." — Rachel Carson, conservationist and author of The Sense of Wonder
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