Yesterday they came up with the idea to write their own newspaper. Always willing to take on a literacy related project with neighborhood kids, we brainstormed various "news stories" to include.

They came up with the following list:

• A summary of the day's sledding down the neighborhood Big Hill
  
• Sledding do's and don'ts
  
• A recipe for hot chocolate (a surefire winner with marshmallows and whipped cream)
  
• A jokes and riddles section (guess whose idea that was?)
  
• A winter day word search (kids love a word search, but should teachers?)

It's turning into quite a project. Their current plan is to use ReadWriteThink's Printing Press to create the newspaper. Anna's working with Puzzlemaker to make the word search. The other cul-de-sac kids are off drafting their own columns.

Stay tuned! If the newspaper actually goes to "print," I'll post it here.

Coloring pages from digital photos: From one of the blogs I love, Here in the Bonny Glen, a link to Crayola's Play Zone Coloring Page Maker. After registering, you can turn your digital photos into coloring pages. How fun is that?! Imagine what great writing prompts those pictures/coloring pages would make!

Comprehension Constructor guide: From Choice Literacy, a helpful article and free PDF of "comprehension constructors," developed by teachers to support thoughtful reading. It's recommended for adolescent readers, but I think elementary teachers could use them with slight modifications.

Catalogs in the classroom: From the Book Chook, ideas for using catalogs as teaching tools in the classroom. My daughter's 3rd grade teacher is doing just that as part of her economics unit on needs and wants. Some of the Book Chook's recommendations include questions that, when asked, seem as though might also develop kids' media literacy, an important thing these days. For example, what is the overall layout of the catalog? How is it organized? Is it easy to find the price of items? Are the pictures of some items bigger than others? Why might that be?

New and Improved ReadWriteThink: A consistent resource for lesson plans and teaching ideas, ReadWriteThink has been expanded to include new resources and communities. A partnership of the International Reading Association, the National Council of Teachers of English, and the Verizon Foundation, this site is one to bookmark.

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Some of the findings:
"Today, 8-18 year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes (7:38) to using entertainment media across a typical day (more than 53 hours a week). And because they spend so much of that time 'media multitasking' (using more than one medium at a time), they actually manage to pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes (10:45) worth of media content into those 7-1/2 hours."

(To see what the authors counted and didn't count as entertainment media, view the methodology section of the report).

I find these results really depressing. Worse, they've caused me to reflect and realize how my own girls' media usage has crept up over the past few months! What used to be contained to the occasional DVR show has morphed into listening to an iPod, to new games for the Wii and the DS, to using my Kindle as soon as I put it down!

I don't really know how much overall screen time my kids have, but I'm going to find out! The appendix of the Kaiser report includes a sample of a media diary, but I think it's too sophisticated for my needs. I'm going to simply jot down the screen time that's happening this week, without making any major changes to our schedule. I know we're not anywhere near the 7:38 logged by older kids, but I'm interested to see where we are. Care to join me?

If kids and media is a topic of interest to you, be sure to check out our latest webcast, Screen time and literacy. In addition to video of three experts on the topic, we've gathered resources for parents and teachers as well as discussion questions to follow webcast viewing.

If you're unfamiliar with Amazon's eReader, the Kindle, or eReaders in general, they're portable electronic devices that allow you to download, store and read books wirelessly. Different from a laptop, most eReaders are not backlit, which means you can't view the screen in the dark but you can read in bright sunlight, something you can't do with a laptop. Most eReaders rely on something called eInk, which uses a low-power, high contrast "electronic paper."

Curious to see what the Kindle could offer for my young readers, we browsed the Kindle store for Children's Chapter Books. Currently, there are 9 books for Baby-3 (among them Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes by Annie Kubler,) 903 ebooks for Ages 4-8 (including Nubs and Curious George), and over 2,400 books for ages 9-12, including The Lightning Thief and The Magician's Elephant.

Sadly, Harry Potter isn't available (although several books about Harry Potter are). We also couldn't find Judy Moody, another series my 7 year old likes. One nice feature of the Kindle store is that we could download samples of books before buying. We downloaded several samples, and they really helped us make our buying decision.

After all our browsing, we couldn't really find a Kindle title that my 7 year old was dying to read, but we did end up downloading The Name of this Book is Secret . As a digital native, Anna caught on to the device immediately, and didn't seem to bring all the "reader issues" to the table that I do — I'm also reading a Kindle book, and am still trying to get past the concept that I'm not physically holding a book and not able to see the cover the way it was designed.

Will the Kindle change the world? I don't know. It's changed the look of my nightstand, for the time being. And it's changed the look of our lunch table too. Beyond that, we'll see!

The topic of kindergarten readiness produced many comments. Lots of parents struggle with the same decision we faced when it came time to decide whether we should send our summer birthday child to kindergarten. Social/emotional development, literacy skills, and school climate all seem to play a role for parents, and we'll continue to discuss those topics this year.

Word searches, as a waste of instructional time, Accelerated Reader, and my feelings about particular reading logs also sparked many comments. I love that your comments span such diverse opinions, and that several audiences (parents, teachers, professors, even students!) weighed in. I'll continue to blog about specific instructional issues here, and I hope you'll continue to let me know your thoughts.

Last, we love to talk about books to share with kids. My favorite classroom read alouds and my appeal for books to read to my daughter's third-grade class yielded great suggestions. I hope you'll keep on sharing your book finds with us. I promise to do the same!

What do you want to talk about this year? I know several topics I'd like to broach: year-round schooling, ways to practice spelling words during the week, writing and language development, and parenting a struggling reader. Again, happy new year, stay warm, and keep reading and commenting! I love hearing from you.

Scieszka wrote a quick goodbye this week in the Huffington Post in which Mr. Scieszka recounted some of his favorite moments during his time as The Ambassador. They're sweet and funny, and made me glad that he's been the voice of children's literature.

Scieszka also summarized the advice he's been giving, and it's really good. So good, in fact, that I'll put his bullet points here, but then go back and read the whole post:

• Let each child choose what she or he wants to read. I'll never forget my own son's reaction reading Little House on the Prairie (a favorite of many readers): "Are they really going to spend this whole chapter making a door?"


• Expand the definition of "reading" to include non-fiction, humor, graphic novels, magazines, action adventure, and, yes, even websites. It's the pleasure of reading that counts; the focus will naturally broaden. A boy won't read shark books forever.


• If a kid doesn't like one book, don't worry about finishing it. Start another. The key is helping children find what they like.


• Be a good reading role model. Show kids what you like to read, what you don't like to read, how you choose what you read. Let them see you reading.


• Avoid demonizing television, computer games, and new technologies. Electronic media may compete for kids' attention, but we're not going to get kids reading by badmouthing other entertainment. Admit that TV and games can do things books can't. Talk about how reading can make a world in ways that movies and games can't.

Perhaps the most comprehensive collection of book recommendations, our Annual Buying Guide includes books for kids ranging from 0-4 to 8-9 year olds.

From Choice Literacy, the 4th Annual Gifts for Literacy Geeks list. I especially love the Choose Books t-shirt from the Literacy Tees section.

From Imagination Soup, a holiday gift guide (PDF) that includes educational ideas that cover interests in geography and history, science, reading, Spanish, pretend, and more. (Caution: the file is big; allow a minute for it to load).

Common Sense Media helps with all kinds of shopping with their lists. I used the Best DVDs for Kids and Families guide to help me learn what movies we should catch up on over winter break. Most of Common Sense's lists can be viewed by child's age, which is helpful.

The Parents' Choice Gift Guide is arranged by age and by price. Included in their guide are eco-friendly toys and gifts for kids with special needs.

Good luck with those to do lists!

The latest edition of Literacy Lava, a newsletter for parents and caregivers, is available in PDF form here.

From the editor:
In this third edition of Literacy Lava, you'll find ideas for promoting literacy through inexpensive activities you can do with your kids. Find out what your local library has to offer, read ideas on making books with kids, sneak some learning into shopping, discover games that build literacy skills, develop imagination while playing Grocery Store, make writing part of your family's life, read why picture books are so good for kids, and find out how literacy helped one child fight night terrors. Don't forget to check out the Online Extras page, and the Writing Prompt activity page for kids.

Some highlights for me from this issue include Susan Stephenson's Making Books with Your Kids ideas, the word game suggestions, the grocery list for kids, and the online extras found at the end of the issue.

I hope you enjoy Literacy Lava!

An Introduction to Letter Writing covers activities for many common types of letter writing, including formal and informal letters, thank you notes, letters of complaint, and more. For kids who prefer to work online, or need a more step-by-step approach, try Read, Write, Think's Letter Generator. It's set up to help kids write either a friendly letter or a business letter.

For character-related fun, the Arthur section on the PBS Kids website has a Letter Writer Helper that shows kids the various parts of a "good old-fashioned" letter, an email, a greeting card, and a postcard. Staying within that site, kids can use Letters To to help them write to Arthur, Francine, Sue Ellen, or The Brain.

If you're wondering whether you have realistic expectations about your child's writing, some of the links within this section on Education.com can help you understand what to expect in writing by age and grade.

Whatever the reason for writing, hopefully these resources will help.

I'm looking for funny and engaging picture book read alouds for third graders. I've asked around my neighborhood and my teacher friends, and combed our own bookcases. I have a few ideas, but would love to hear yours!

Some possible titles are below; please tell me what titles have worked well for you! And, with our teacher's permission, here's more information about her "Mystery Reader" program:

The invitation and description

The reminder letter and request for clues

So far, possible titles include:

• Arnie, the Doughnut by Laurie Keller, about a doughnut shocked to discover his fate


• What To Do About Alice? How Alice Roosevelt Broke the Rules, Charmed the World, and Drove Her Father Teddy Crazy! "Theodore Roosevelt had a small problem. Her name was Alice. Alice Lee Roosevelt was hungry to go places, meet people, do things. Father called it running riot."


• Dolores Meets Her Match
  "Until the arrival of Hillary, the new girl in the class, Dolores has been the star of Show-and-Tell and resident cat expert, accustomed to regaling her classmates with tales of her "amazing" cat Duncan. Now she is worried."

My fellow blogger on Page by Page, children's lit expert Maria Salvadore, gave me other suggestions, here are two:

• Ever wonder what writing instruments do when their kid snoozes? Well, Tony finds out in Arthur Yorinks' newish book Homework (published by Walker). Richard Egielski did the boldly outlined and colored illustrations just right for sharing to a group. (This is the author illustrator team that won a Caldecott for Hey, Al, though this is a very different book.)


• A chapter from a Gooney Bird Greene book (any of them) would read aloud well — and 3rd graders might enjoy recalling what life was in 2nd grade. My favorite chapter is in the newest book, Gooney Bird Is So Absurd (Houghton), in which Mrs. Pidgeon introduces the class — including the principal — to the fun of writing limericks.

Update 11/16/09

It was SO fun to be the Mystery Reader! The class caught me in the hallway as I was heading to the classroom, so there wasn't much of a "big reveal," but it was still tons of fun.

I ended up reading two books about writing: We started with Homework that Maria suggested, and then read Chester (that commenter Jaymie recommended - thanks Jaymie!)

The kids LOVED both books, I think Homework appealed more to the boys, and everyone loved Chester.

I almost went with one longer book, and had chosen Henry and the Kite Dragon, which is a book I still want to share with a group of kids.

THANKS for all your suggestions, both here and on Facebook. I really appreciate it!

An excerpt from Kirkus Reviews:

Ten-year-old Peter Augustus Duchene goes to the market for fish and bread but spends it at the fortuneteller's tent instead. Seeking his long-lost sister, Peter is told, "You must follow the elephant. She will lead you there." And that very night at the Bliffenendorf Opera House, a magician's spell goes awry, conjuring an elephant that crashes through the ceiling and lands on Madam Bettine LaVaughn. Reading like a fable told long ago, with rich language that begs to be read aloud, this is a magical story about hope and love, loss and home, and of questioning the world versus accepting it as it is.

The book's website offers Chapter 1 as an excerpt, as well as an activity kit and a reading group discussion guide.

DiCamillo's writing brings you right there: right to the fortuneteller's tent, right to the magician's prison cell. While the book includes a few illustrations, (beautifully done by Yoko Tanaka) the writing provides a perfect opportunity to help kids develop pictures in their mind while reading or listening. The National Reading Panel includes mental imagery as one of their "top 7" comprehension strategies, citing research that suggests imagery can improve memory, comprehension, and an appreciation for text.

I found one booklist with titles to use with young kids that provide mental imagery practice:

• Into The Book's list chosen by the Cooperative Children's Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
.

Let's make our own list of books to use with kids that provide powerful mental images, I'll start! You comment in with titles too!

1. The Magician's Elephant — perfect for grades 2-4, see above
2. The Wingdingdilly (by Bill Peet) — my second graders loved drawing their own creature as I read aloud

The U.S. Department of Education offers some advice in their document Preparing for the Flu: Department of Education Recommendations to Ensure the Continuity of Learning for Schools (K‐12). Included are recommendations that range from sending hard copy packets home to sick kids to recorded class meetings made available online or through podcasts to distance learning courses. Each recommendation seeks to keep the learning going, even when kids are out of school.

Molly's teacher used a simple paper form to communicate missed assignments. Every day she filled out the sections (math, science, social studies), and sent home worksheets and pages to read from the reading group's book. It worked for us, and it's what many teachers do during this time of the year.

For parents, kids under a blanket are a captive audience! Use this opportunity to start a new read aloud at home. Or, check out our booklist called From Book to Film. You can plan a fun day of reading a book and snuggling up for the movie adaptation.

Teachers: What are you doing to keep instruction going in your classroom? Please share your tips and advice!

Parents: What are you doing to occupy your sick child? Got any great tips or advice to share?

A comment from last week's post inspired this week's title. Alex's comment was a dead-on piece of reality:

From a parent's point of view, when you are sitting with your kid and encouraging them to read, meanwhile they are tired and bored and guessing at words and making up games, what can you do? You either get angry and say, "just read this, I know you can and it's getting late and I'm tired!" or you can bribe them...."if you read this, you'll get some sort of special treat." I really haven't seen a deep discussion of how to help during those little times. No practical tips. I hear things like, "pick a regular time each day, continue to read to the kids, make it fun!" but not a lot of practical advice.

Haven't we all been there at some point with a reluctant reader?

Sadly, the "practical advice" needed isn't quick and easy to communicate, and it really is darn hard work. But, if I were to pick one piece of advice to help during those times, it would be this: make sure your child is reading at his or her independent level at home.

A child's independent level is the level at which the material is relatively easy for the student to read, and can be read with at least 95% accuracy. Books at this level aren't hard for the child to read, and dont require the child to sound out lots of words. Most of the words are read quickly and easily.

When a child spends time reading at his independent level, he's getting a chance to practice word recognition and word analysis skills (the ones hopefully being taught at school). Repeated readings of the same book over and over again enable each reading to become smoother. Soon, the reading will begin to "sound like talking." These are all important steps in becoming a fluent reader.

So, get ready to hear those favorite beginning reader books over and over again. Build up a basketful of independent-level books to be read at night, and then read 4 or 6 a night.

A side note: In our house, we "retire" a book when it can be read with eyes closed.

Related: How to Read with a Beginning Reader

Her daughter is right; she is taking tests on the computer. Her school uses Accelerated Reader, which according to the AR site is "the world's most widely used reading software." AR works this way: Student reads a book, student takes a quiz, teacher gets a report that outlines the quiz scores. Students' scores accumulate during the year, and the number of points available differs by book. The easier the book, the fewer the points. For example, in browsing the AR BookFinder site, I learned that Jerry Pinkney's Little Red Riding Hood is worth 0.5 points, Abel's Island (William Steig) is worth 3 points.

The What Works Clearinghouse review of Accelerated Reader found two studies that met the WWC evidence standards. Based on the data from these two studies, WWC concluded:

The WWC considers the extent of evidence for Accelerated Reader to be medium to large for comprehension and small for reading fluency and general reading achievement.

I'm okay with a school having AR in place, and using it for what it may be: a supplemental intervention that may encourage kids to engage in more independent reading. But a word of caution: the National Reading Panel's conclusion of programs that encouraged independent reading was "unable to find a positive relationship between programs and instruction that encourage large amounts of independent reading and improvements in reading achievement, including fluency." p.12), so AR really shouldn't be used as a large part of the LA block.

Accelerated Reader doesn't provide reading instruction. Teachers do. I've encouraged B to call her child's teacher and find out more about the 90 minute block of LA time. Chances are there's a lot more going on than B's daughter recognizes. Stay tuned, I'll let you know what B says when she calls me back!

Cognitive theorists consider learning to be a social event. Recent research suggests that both teachers and students pay the price if they fail to form warm, supportive relationships within the classroom. All kinds of behaviors can be associated with positive "attachments" in the classroom, among them: greater emotional regulation, social competence, and willingness to take on challenges, and with lower levels of ADHD and delinquency, each of which is associated with higher achievement.

Besides postcards, what can teachers do to enhance their relationships with students? According to research from the Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning, teachers can organize nonacademic extracurricular activities for students and teachers to participate together, have students and teacher eat lunch together in small groups a few times a week, have homeroom teachers act as advisers for students, and create an atmosphere of open communication.

What has worked in your classroom? How do you foster positive relationships with your students?

From the Exquisite Corpse site:

Ever heard of an Exquisite Corpse? It's not what you might think. An Exquisite Corpse is an old game in which people write a phrase on a sheet of paper, fold it over to conceal part of it and pass it on to the next player to do the same. The game ends when someone finishes the story, which is then read aloud.

Teachers have used a similar strategy in the classroom for years, but I've usually seen it done orally. Kids sit in a circle, begin a tale, and move around the circle adding and shifting the storyline with each student. One lucky student gets to wrap it up with an ending that pulls it all together.

From a reading teacher's perspective, this is great practice. To build a successful story, students have to pay attention, formulate their own storyline, and further the plot by providing information that builds on what they've learned so far. Sounds like great comprehension work to me!

Jon Scieszka, the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, has written the first episode of this Exquisite Corpse, which is "pieced together out of so many parts that it is not possible to describe them all here, so go ahead and just start reading!" And that's no joke. Scieszka drops hints about several interesting things that may unfold with the story, including an elephant clown party, real ninjas, fake vampires, a roller-skating baby and more.

There will be a new episode and illustration every two weeks, for a year. The readability seems to be around second or third grade, but the comprehension work can span into many other grade levels.

For teachers, The National Children's Book and Literacy Alliance and the Butler Center for Children's Literature at Dominican University have developed a companion educational resource center to support the project. For this episode, the resources include a list of other cliffhanger books kids might like, activities for the classroom that focus on synonyms and antonyms, figurative language, a guide to the characters, and some information about the artwork that accompanies episode one.

Here at Reading Rockets, we have our own "Exquisite Prompt," and you can learn more about the prompts, author/illustrator resources, and rules here.

I think we'll be giving the Exquisite Corpse a try around our house. Care to join me?

Grammar Central lists those contractions among its basics for communicating clearly, and those contractions are real words. But Grammar Girl agrees with my friend. Calling them "hazardous contractions," words on Grammar Girl's list include "could've," "should've," "would've," "might've," and "must've." What makes them hazardous is that they encourage people to believe the proper pronunciations are "could of" and "must of," rather than "could have," "should have," "would have," and "might have." According to Grammar Girl, it's better to spell these out when you are writing them, though she acknowledges that you'll probably find yourself using these contractions in regular speech.

Maybe those should be the two word study lessons for the week: (1) The "hazardous contractions" are formed with the word "have" rather than "of," and (2) Recognize that for clarity's sake, some words used in oral language are better left out of our written language.

What does your contraction curriculum include? Are these "hazardous contractions" included? And, if they are in there, how have you taught them?

Answer: Thanks for the question! Volunteering is a great way to get involved at your child's school. If you read Freakonomics, you'll remember the part about "a child whose parents are involved in the PTA tend to do well in school." There's nothing magical about the PTA per say, it's the involvement and strong relationship to education that makes the difference.

Because you can't volunteer directly in your child's classroom, here are some other ways to get involved that can really help the school and the kids too.

• If you like working directly with students, ask if there is another teacher in the building who would like a parent volunteer. While your teacher might not want parents in the room, others might, particularly in the lower grades, like K and 1. Some schools actually have policies that parents can't volunteer in their child's classroom, but are assigned to other teachers.


• If you like working with groups of students, ask the music, art or PE teacher if they would like some help. This provides a great opportunity to see kids in a different setting. Specialists don't get offers to help nearly as often as classroom teachers do.


• Check out the library! The librarian, sometimes called the media specialist, is likely looking for help shelving books and assisting with check out. This is a great way to familiarize yourself with new books you can share with your own children.


• Ask if your school has a volunteer tutoring program like Book Buddies or the Howard Street Tutoring program. Research confirms that volunteer tutoring has a positive effect on student achievement. If your school doesn't have a program in place, the Washington Reading Corps Toolkit offers some terrific resources to get a program started.

I hope one of these sounds interesting to you, and I'm sure there are other opportunities at your school, perhaps through the PTO? I applaud your desire to volunteer at your child's school. I've always loved this quote from Elizabeth Andrew: Volunteers do not necessarily have the time; they just have the heart.

Persistence and perseverance are particularly important traits for students who struggle in school. The willingness to try, try, try and try again is so important. It's the motivation to do the repeated, guided, well crafted practice that can help students make the progress they need to make to learn to read. When I taught second grade, one of my favorite text sets was one I built around the theme of persistence.

What was in my text set on persistence? Here are five of the titles. What titles can you add?

Obviously, the Little Engine That Could. There wasn't anything fancy about my version, either. Just a familiar tale that started the theme off well.

Amazing Grace is the story of a beautifully imaginative black girl who desperately wants to play the role of Peter Pan in the school play. Undeterred by classmates' remarks, "Peter is a boy. You are a girl," and others, Grace perseveres and inspires others.

Kitten's First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes. Cute, cute pictures and an adventure tale about a kitten who mistakes the moon for a bowl of milk. With a happy ending and classic Henkes appeal, a fun addition to the set.

The Carrot Seed. Classic tale of a little boy who plants a carrot seed and waits patiently for it to grow. This book was a great addition to the text set for years when the kids read the books (in contrast to using them as read alouds) because of its lower readability.

Tillie and the Wall. The story of the youngest mouse who is determined to see whats on the other side of a long, high wall. Through her determination and smarts, Tillie makes it to the other side. Beautiful pictures, well told. A wonderful read aloud.

Do you have any titles to add to the text set?

All this thinking about summer books made me think about books for fall, specifically that first read aloud you share with your new class of kids. What's the perfect first read aloud? I'm thinking beyond the picture book to a chapter book that the class has to commit to. My last post on read alouds listed some my favorites, and teachers and librarians commented in with their own favorites, creating a good list of its own.

My friends' kids are in classrooms with pretty predictable, solid, can't go wrong choices: The Hundred Dresses, The BFG, and George's Marvelous Medicine. In talking with my friends about these books, I realized no one mentioned any nonfiction — no autobiographies, biographies, or memoirs. I'm not sure what this means, but with wonderful nonfiction award winners like these I'm sure some nonfiction titles will be read soon.

Teachers, what did you pick for your first read aloud, and why that book? Parents, what did your child's teacher pick? How does your child like the book?