Soup

I'd heard of this book (and the others in the series) but never read one.  I guess I'd heard it compared to Mark Twain so often that I dismissed it thinking, "Then I'll sick to Twain."

Then I wrote that novel last summer and I've had a number of readers compare it to the Soup books.  Well, those and the work of David Lubar.  I'm not too familiar with him either, and am working on rectifying that as well.

This was not the cover of the book I read.  Mine was from our school's media center and had the original illustrations.

It's a nostalgic look back at a rural childhood and the adventures of two friends.  It's a little moralistic, but funny and winning.  Each chapter is a separate tale.  The funny thing is that some parent-reviewers seem "shocked" by the content.  They're boys who mention their butts and try smoking (corn silk--yuck).  Big deal.  I was more put off by the passage in which they're about to cheat someone in town out of a small amount of money so they can go to a movie.  They decide it's "okay to cheat a Jew," even though they're not clear on what that means.  Of course they feel terrible when they're caught, but it certainly stood out.

Of course the boys in my book enjoy peeing in the snow, so who am I to talk?

I was mainly curious if kids today would enjoy it.  I haven't read it out loud yet, but I can't imagine that they wouldn't.  Boys getting into shenanigans.  It's a universal and timeless theme.

The Reading Zone

Since Kelly Gallagher referred to Nancie Atwell's The Reading Zone so often and because every time I read about it I groused out loud about not having it, My Lovely Wife picked me up a copy.  Here again is an amazing professional book you can read in a weekend and still enjoy your weekend! (I think when I'm a Media Specialist I'll make a list like that for the staff).

It's another awesome manifesto supporting the main ideas in Krashen's The Power of Reading just like Gallagher's Readicide.  The main difference is that Gallagher's is a call to action politically and it also gives some lesson ideas and teaching strategies.  Atwell's is a call to action in the classroom and it also gives some political ideas (most notably in the Appendix, "How to Create a National Reading Zone").

It's a fantastic book, grounded in the theories of Krashen and Frank Smith and hits some of the same points as Gallagher.  They both even describe many of our current practices as "mind-numbing."  They also both repudiate what Atwell dubs "the comprehension-strategy bandwagon," the evidence for which she says are based on "short-term studies, some of questionable design."  Ironically, the interrupting nature of this style of teaching can actually hurt comprehension.

There is only one way to create better readers at all levels (and psst! it's actually fun).  The "single activity that consistently correlates with high levels of performance on standardized tests of reading ability...is __________________."

A) Teaching comprehension strategies

B)  More Post-It notes

C) Grammar and Spelling work

or D) None of the above.

The answer is obviously D) None of the above.

The only thing that works--that has ever worked--and is a pleasure for students and teachers alike, is "frequent, voluminous reading."

There's a bandwagon worth jumping on.

Readicide

I love professional books that you can read in a weekend (and still enjoy your weekend) as Richard Allington points out in the Foreword. Readicide is a scant 160 some pages with lots of white space. If you don't mind reading online you can see it here, but you'll want to be buying a physical copy to share and mark up, I promise.

First: a definition.

"Read-i-cide: noun, the systematic killing of the love of reading, often exacerbated by the inane, mind-numbing practices found in schools."

So he's not exactly going into this as a wallflower. This is a manifesto, and a good one. I won't go into the facts and figures he lays out so clearly, but if you liked things like Krashen's The Power of Reading or Trelease's Read-Aloud Handbook, then you'll love this.

After reading the Smith book, I needed to know what to do and Gallagher gives some good ideas. But first he has to lay out what we're doing wrong. He makes for points.

• Schools value the the development of test-takers more than they value the development of readers
• Schools are limiting authentic reading experiences
• Teachers are overteaching books
• Teachers are underteaching books

(Gallagher, 2009)

So what can we do? He advocates taking a stand and engaging in "hard talk" with all of the players in this issue--he even has a checklist of questions! He advocates being the "discussion director" on your campus for this most important issue. He also recommends creating a "book flood" of interesting titles in classrooms so there is plenty of engaging materials for young readers and that every student has a book to take home every night.

Gallagher also has solid instructional recommendations, but I won't take up more of your time. I think you get the idea that as soon as you finish the Frank Smith book and feel that queasy feeling of not knowing what to do, you should grab a copy of this and get fired up with more of a righteous indignation and a plan of attack.

Gallagher is a high school teacher and most of his instructional ideas are geared that way, but they are all easily adapted to any learner. For more on his other books and research, check out his own site.

Let's do whatever it takes to end readicide for our students.

The Book of Learning and Forgetting

I've been around long enough to realize that there are no easy answers or quick fixes.  Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something that won't work (like NCLB, for example).

But there are indeed simple problems.  In this book, Frank Smith lays out what is the underlying problem with education.  We're doing it wrong because we keep forgetting what real learning looks like.  The surprising thing is we all, every one of us--educator or no--knows what this looks like because we see it all around us all the time.

We learn from the company we keep.  If I took two babies born twenty years ago, one from the Gaza strip and one from right here in the suburbs of Atlanta, and I nefariously switched them at birth and we had a chance to talk to them right now what do you think we would find?  We would find exactly what you think we would find because we learn from the company we keep.

This company includes the authors of the books we read and the characters in them.  I've learned more from Isaac Asimov, Carl Sagan and Kurt Vonnegut than almost all of my classroom teachers combined.  I've also picked up a thing or two from a fisherman named Ishmael, a wizard named Albus, and a millionaire named Bruce Wayne.  I'm learning about how to become a media specialist as much, if not more, from people like Doug Johnson at The Blue Skunk Blog and Kathy at Library Stew as I am from my professors.

You can't help it.  You are learning things constantly whether you want to or not.  Yesterday I learned about our trade policies with Cuba not because I was interested in them but because I have a relative who now has a job documenting the inventory of shipping containers and told me about her work.  I learned that it's better to use that second entrance to the strip mall I went to because then it's easier to exit out at the light.  I learned when I took my sweet little five-year-old daughter for an allergy test that she is braver than I had even imagined.  (Poor thing.)

What are your students learning?  You can tell by looking at them.  If they're engaged and interested in that discussion group of Bull Run then they're learning about the Civil War and cooperating in a group.  If they're putting they're head down in math they've learned that math isn't for them and maybe school isn't either.

It's not hard to figure out, but for some reasons that Smith lays out clearly and concisely we've taken the wrong path.  He has a few ideas on how to get back on the right one, but it'll take all of us to get there.

Ninja Children's Books!

Esme has the scoop at The PlanetEsme Plan.

Squished

Man, I've been squished with two grad school projects and an upcoming family visit. So therefore a dearth of fresh, shiny new posts to clog up your reader.

One of the projects included me reading three professional books, so I'll be throwing up some reviews of those soon.

What have you been reading lately?

Oh! And our school just got these fancy-schmancy new ceiling-mounted LCD projectors in all the classrooms so now I can show off not only videos, but full-sized stuff from my laptop.

Any cool ideas for that? I mean other than Jeopardy and BrainPop?

Stop Investing In Scales, Invest In Nutrition

"...districts...are being forced to cut positions and reduce services in areas known to help children.

A good example of this is funding for school librarians. Studies consistently tell us that the presence of a credentialed school librarian is positively related to reading achievement.

Dumping...useless (and painful) tests would take some of the financial pressure off school districts, and allow them to restore at least some of the cuts in programs and staffing that have been shown to be beneficial for students. Let's stop investing so much money in scales, and make sure we invest in nutrition."

--Stephen Krashen


(image cc "10th March")

Hard Decisions

It's getting tough all over, especially when it comes to making choices these days.  I was just struck by this reading two powerful and interesting posts in my reader.

The first one comes from the great Science Goddess and she wants to know if there's a better way of deciding when teachers are displaced.  Right now the norm is to let the teachers with the least seniority go, but that hardly seems fair.  Yet if we let principals decide on their own you know what a mess that would be.  I'd think a democratic group of administrators and teachers would be the best choice (and maybe not even ones from the same schools) but that's still asking for more time and uncomfortable choices than many will want.  How do we decide who is an "effective teacher" anyway?  Not just test scores, surely?  Food for thought, anyway.

The next one is from a speech given by our state's media association president to the legislature on the possible passing of a bill which would let administrators use media center money for other purposes.  This one seems clearer to me, but then I'm obviously biased in favor of school libraries.  Although is it really a bias when all the evidence points to agreement with your position?

(image cc "switch")

Building A Community of Readers

I'm sure you are familiar with Kidlitoshpere Central, a portal for news links and updates to all of the wonderful children and young adult literature bloggers out there on the interwebs. This month I want to make sure you’re familiar with a project put together by some of these bloggers called Share a Story-Shape a Future. They are spending this week rounding up posts from over a dozen bloggers about literacy and reading promotion. It includes educators, librarians, writers, illustrators, parents and more. To make it even more enticing (as if all that weren’t enough) they have some great give-aways planned. Check them out!

Day 1 was Raising Readers and was hosted by Terry at Scrub-a-Dub-Tub.

Day 2 is Selecting Reading Material and is being hosted by Sarah at The Reading Zone.

Day 3 will focus on Reading Aloud and will be hosted by The Book Chook.

Day 4 will focus on Visiting the Library and will be hosted by Eva’s Book Addiction.

Day 5 will focus on Technology and Reading and will be hosted by Elizabeth O. Dulemba.

Share and enjoy!

Which Skills Matter?

Two blog posts hit me over the head today to help me clarify some things I've been thinking about.

First up, Doug Johnson asking,  Are they really 21st century skills?

"I have always been skeptical that society or schools actually want students who are capable of critical thinking. Who are information literate. Who are genuinely creative. These scary people threaten the status quo and may lead a better class of legislators, CEOs, and school administrators."

To bring things further down to earth another Doug, Doug Noon, describes his successful experiment with Free and Voluntary Reading.  

"This year, everyone in the class reads what they want to read, and they read without interruption for 30-40 minutes each day. They tell me about their books when I go around the room asking how it’s going. I write down what we talk about. They read short passages quietly to me. They write in journals about their books. They meet with partners or in small groups, and they give oral “book reports” written on sticky notes. They make book recommendations to each other. They read at home and before school without being told to, and they tell me they love to read. I even saw one of my students reading a book walking down the hall the other day. It’s going viral."

What's the first thing people say when they come upon an adult who stumbles over reading? They say that you mean to tell me you went through twelve years of school and you can't even read?  All the "21st Century Skills" Doug J. mentioned build upon that one solid foundation.  So do all the critical thinking and questioning skills we (should) value.  That's the first skill we need to work on and Doug N. has found the best way to do it.

By letting them have the time and the freedom and the materials to just read.

Or as Doug N. says:

"When we do the right things, the people who stand to profit most are the kids."

Thanks Dougs.

(image cc "school friends")

Recess Alternatives

Last week I posted about recess and it seems to have struck a chord.  Many responses from people who realize the need we all have to take a good solid fun break, which actually increases performance.  I wanted to follow up with some further thoughts and throw out some ideas.

I usually delete comments when someone is selling something, but Melinda Bossenmeyer commented with a link that is relevant.  She has a website called Peaceful Playgrounds that seems worth looking into.  I say this because just yesterday in a faculty meeting the issue of behavior on the playground came up again.

As for recess alternatives, their site has some ideas on this as well.  Ideas for alternatives to recess when it's cancelled due to inclement weather and alternatives to taking away recess for discipline.  There's an idea worth sharing!

Another great resource is the book The First Six Weeks of School which includes ideas about making recess a more positive time for all.  First of all, they suggest having recess before lunch if at all possible.  This gives the kids a chance to wind down before returning to class.  They also say it's worth the time investment for the teachers and PE coaches to give up a little free time at the beginning of the year and take the students to recess and teach them different games to play for a few weeks and initiate them into proper techniques of choice and turn taking, making the time far more positive for the rest of the year.

Any other ideas?

(image cc "miniature playground #2")

No School Today