Roots of Learning » reading

The Correlation between Reading (OUTSIDE OF SCHOOL) and Success (INSIDE OF SCHOOL)

admin — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 03:37:01 +0000

I read an interesting blog post by Dan Brown, a teacher and author of The Great Expectations School: A Rookie Year in the New Blackboard Jungle. He is the also the author of an education blog called Get in the Fracas. Here is an excerpt:

“I have a clutch of students who read for pleasure, yet bizarrely hand in assignments only sporadically. Let’s call them “Readers.” These are the kids who take home The Kite Runner and read the whole thing in two days—then never write any of their journal responses. Their grades do not reflect their abilities. However, these students always score at or near the very top of the class on these standardized tests.”

This hints at an even deeper gift that these students have – one that feeds their love of reading – and that is the innate (or is it taught? modeled? suggested?) gift of CURIOSITY. These people do not read because they have to – “have to” doesn’t factor in that heavily if they are not writing their journal responses and earning poor grades. They are reading because of something else. That SOMETHING is also leading them to score at the top of these assesments that Mr. Brown refers to. Freedom of thought, freedom from the slavish “do only what you are told to do and nothing more” and a freedom to pursue knowledge and adventure (what else?) through books fuels these students’ success. As a parent, how do you foster CURIOSITY?

- Heather

Great Listing of Great Books!

admin — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 03:04:04 +0000

This list from an article in the July 2009 ASCD Educational Leadership magazine includes books by age level that are good for teaching social responsibility. If anyone has used any of these or done any specific activities with their kids to encourage social responsibility, I’d love to hear about it!

- Heather

Our FREE Summer E-course is Online Now

admin — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 04:26:20 +0000

Parents, we hope you take a moment to check out our free summer mini e-course, and send us some feedback! We’d love to hear your opinions! Happy Fourth of July everyone!

- Heather

Language Arts Resources from Discovery Education

admin — Sun, 17 May 2009 15:36:40 +0000

I just stumbled across a set of videos to support Language Arts Education from Discovery Education. Downside: they are not interactive. Upside: they are free, short, and interesting.

- Heather

New PBS Site

admin — Fri, 15 May 2009 16:23:20 +0000

PBS has launched PBS Read – a site where kids, parents, caregivers can work together on reading! PBS already has some great reading and writing resources available for kids and adults, and it was great to see that they merged the two audiences with this website. In my mind it encourages families to take a more active role in education – which is what we’re all about at Roots of Learning, too!

Check out the new PBS Read site.

- Heather

Teaching the Brain to Read

admin — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 03:17:57 +0000

I just finished reading a book by Judy Willis entitled Teaching the Brain to Read: Strategies for Improving Fluency, Vocabulary, and Comprehension.

I highly recommend it for teachers and parents interested in how reading is learned and how we build meaning and gain comprehension.

Find out more at ASCD.org.

Literacy in a Changing World

admin — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 17:40:32 +0000

With today’s innundation of available information, parents and students must understand how to navigate their way through the ‘rough’ to get to the ‘diamonds’ AND to know the ‘diamonds’ when they see them. So how is literacy changing in the 21st century?

It is no longer sufficient to learn to read and learn to write well. Now we need to determine sources’ validity, we need to be able to write for an expanding audience pool and do so in formats that never existed before the last few years.

Some of the essential skills are to read critically, write clearly, interpret information, evaluate sources, and to blend visual, sound, and written elements into creative pieces.

I’d love to hear from parents or teachers who are managing to do these things well!

What kind of Reading Resources are parents looking for?

admin — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 21:32:13 +0000

OK. So your child is past the ‘decoding’ phase of learning to read. He can sound out words and get through some books. What comes next? We’re creating a resource for parents of 2nd – 6th graders. The goal is to help them assist their children in the less obvious but important processes of reading comprehension – helping them to understand, analyze, evaluate, and sythesize what they read.

I’d love to get some feedback from parents. What are you looking for? (Of course sometimes you don’t know until you see it – so I’ll post a few “freebies/examples” soon). Please comment on this post and let me know what challenges you are facing with your child’s reading development!

Thanks,

Heather