Young Adult Lit

Read Across America

Today was a great day.  We celebrated Read Across America.  I know what you're thinking.  That day was yesterday. Yesterday we had a little ole benchmark to give.   But I would like to know why we have to designate a special day to read.  Why can everyday be Read Across America day?  On my way to school, I started thinking about our kids and reading scores.  I would really like to do a study where I track a few kids around all day and record the amount of time they actually spent engaged in the act of reading.  I think I might already know the answer. 

I follow Kylene Beers on Facebook and Twitter.   Tonight she posted a couple of very powerful statements.  First she said, "Reading at the right Lexile level will never be as important to a kid as reading the right book."  This is such a powerful statement. It breaks my heart when I have a kid come in the library and I share a book that I think he/she might like to read. Then the kid says, "I can't read it because it is below(or above) my level." I'm very tempted to take a pen and mark through the level and say, "Hmmm. How about that. It's on your level now."  The other day, I had a kid come in looking for another book in the Here's Hank series.  He had already read two or three of the books.  He checked out another Here's Hank, and about three minutes later he was back.  He said he couldn't check out the book because it was below his level.  He told me his level was a 4.0 - 5.0.  The book was a 3.9 (According to Accelerated Reader).  I was this close to changing the level.  I know you can't see my hand gestures, but it was just a smidgen.  When I asked him what he liked about the books he said that they were funny, easy to read, and he could actually finish it.  That was the right book for him.  There are only about five books in the series.  Once he has read all of those we can move on to something else. On my list of books to read is Reading Ladders:  Leading Students From Where They are to Where We'd Like Them to Be  by Teri Lesesne.  I think this guru along with Kylene will provide some powerful documentation to my argument. 

The next thing Kylene posted was this beautifully written ditty about reading.   I love it so much, I would get it in a tattoo.  Well, I'm not really a tattoo kind of person, but I would have posters made and plaster them in every teacher's room and every administrator's office.  I have much to research before I can really start my rant on this subject.  So for now, I will just pass along the good stuff I find from the experts.

 

 

 

Now back to the fun day we had today.  We started off the day with 30 minutes of DEAR time.  Everybody read including secretaries and Coach!   In honor of Dr. Seuss, my principal brought her dog and read What Pet Should I Get? by Dr. Seuss to every class.  That was 26 times.  Teachers and students dressed up as their favorite book character.  We had a couple of kids from the Baseball Card Adventure series, Fern from Charolette's Web, and the spy from Evil Spy School just to name a few.  I asked one student who she was dressed as and she told me Esperanza.  I told her I loved that book.  She said yes, it was a very emotional book.  Oh, and you will be glad to know we found Waldo! I can just imagine all the little book talks that went on today when a kid asked, "Who are you?"

 

 

I adored Ms. Porter our paraprofessional  who dressed up as Maddy from Bayou Magic by Jewell Parker Rhodes.  Ms. Porter was a walking talking book commercial all day long. She even carried the book around to show and share with the kids.  Every time a kid asked who she was, she whipped out the book and did a book talk. 

 

 

 

So here's to reading E-V-E-R-Y-D-A-Y!

 

Happy Reading!

 

 



Youth Art Month

Who knew March is designated as Youth Art Month? Not me, that is until I read the February issue of  Library Sparks. After reading that issue, I got to thinking. Why not host three after school activities involving an art project. I'm not an artist, so I had to turn to my friends at Pinterest and YouTube to help me out with some ideas. This week's lesson centered around Seurat and pointillism. The lesson went well, and I think the kids learned something.  For a display in the library, I featured biographies about famous artist as well as fiction literature.

 

Author Mike Venezia has written a series of biographies called Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists.  Some of the greats he has written about include DaVinci, Monet, Picasso among many

others.  These books serve as a great introduction of artists to young readers.

 

                            

 

 

 

Happy Reading! (and Painting!)



Scraps

One of the 2015-2016 Bluebonnet nominees was the book called Scraps: Notes from a Colorful Life by Lois Ehlert. After sharing the books with the students, I held a collage contest at the library. We had some wonderful entries.

When I held up the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, written by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault with illustrations by Ehlert, I was surprised saddened at the amount of kids who did not know about this book. I read this book so many times to my own children that - 25 years later - I still have it memorized. When I looked at the faces of the students that knew the book versus the faces of the students that did not, I'm pretty sure I could tell who were the better readers. I'm not saying this one book is the key indicator of a successful reader. I'm saying that I'm willing to bet a bucket load of Oprah's money that the kids who know this book also know other books. They probably know nursery rhymes and fairy tales. Their parents probably read to them. They were probably in a classroom where teachers read aloud to them. They probably have been to the public library or even a real book store.

If I were in charge of the world, every newborn would be sent home with a bag of books, a gift certificate to a book store for more books, and a library card for even more books in addition to all that other stuff they need to survive. And the parents would have to pinky swear to read every single day to their kids. And teachers would have to pinky swear to read aloud every single day to their kids. And administrators would have to pinky swear to stand back and let it happen. And lexiles and reading levels would go away. But I will leave that topic for another day.

My Reading Life

Open for Business

The library at Northside Elementary  has been open for business for four weeks and business is booming!  Kids started checking out books on day one.  They love the new seating area.  The funniest thing happened last Thursday.  I had half of a class in the library.  The kids had all found their books and were scattered around the library reading.  Yes, I said reading! Some were reading silently.  Some were reading together.   I looked around and thought, "This is the perfect library."  If my life were a musical, I'm sure I would have busted out a song at that moment.  A group of boys sitting on the couch were reading a ghost story.  About five minutes into this perfect utopian world, we heard this ghost-like, eerie-sounding wail coming from somewhere down the hall.  Those boys about knocked themselves out trying to get up to my desk.  "Miss, did you hear that?  Your library's haunted!"  About the same time, the girls that were in the other corner came running up to the desk.  The lamp by the chairs flickered several times.  Yep, ghosts for sure.  We had a good laugh.  Needless to say, there was not much reading going on after all of those ghostly encounters, but we had a good laugh.  And, yes, they are ready for more ghost stories.

 

 

 

I have created two special book display sections in the library that will change throughout the year.  The first themes were football and back to school books.

 

Two other special sections are the reading genre section and the ever popular graphic novel section.  The reading genre section features a book from each genre displayed with a genre card that explains about that particular genre.  The kids are loving the graphic novel section.  I'm finding these books appeal to the reluctant reader as well as those who struggle a bit with reading.  Some teachers have not embraced the power that the books can have, but I'm working on it!.



ThingLink

I've started blogging, and I just can't stop.  Let's talk about ThingLink.  ThingLink is my new favorite technology tool.  I know what you're thinking.  Every new technology tool I share is my new favorite technology tool.  But this one really is cool!  Thinglink allows you to present information in an interactive way.  All you have to do is download a picture.  To that picture you can add features such as text, audio, videos, and more.  I watched the following YouTube video to help me get started.






 I made a ThingLink for the 2015-2016 Bluebonnet Nominees.  A link attached to each book will take you to a book trailer for that book.  I also added an extra feature on the Always Abigail book. Recently, I created a reader's theater podcast, so I provided the link to that podcast. 




You can also search on the ThingLink site for examples of presentations.  I found this one on independent and dependent clauses.   






The possibilities are endless.  Here are some ideas that popped into my head:

•  a report on Texas regions
• a report on one of the 50 states
• a biography report
• rocks & minerals report
• A REPORT ON ANYTHING!!!

ThingLink is FREE.  You can upgrade to an educator's package that is fairly economical for just $39 per year.  However, just get started with the free version.  You'll be glad you did.

Have fun with my new favorite technology tool!