Today’s Literacy Headlines

Six new vending machines were placed in the city this week, but you won’t find snacks inside them. Instead, the machines are stocked with children’s books. The books are free and part of an initiative launched by JetBlue that aims to provide children with access to age-appropriate reading. The vending machines were placed in neighborhoods where access to children’s books is limited and were chosen with the help of Susan B. Neuman, a childhood and literacy professor at the NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. Children and their families are encouraged to take as many books as they want. The vending machines will be restocked every two weeks with new titles, in English and Spanish.

Regardless of our online reading habits, the “internet of things” doesn’t sleep and will continue to soar in the variety of information being generated through the datafication of online clicks, likes, shares, postings, streamings, and more. The diverse reading that we—and our students—will have to traverse online requires that we have skills and strategies to navigate and comprehend the various multimedia elements in genre-bending spaces. It’s clear informational reading plays a significant role in our readerly lives yet early learners often have limited access and exposure to informational text in school. What can we do to help prepare our students to comprehend informational text in a digital environment?

The state of Texas has been working to correct serious problems in special education highlighted by an investigative report by the Houston Chronicle in 2016. The series of reports shined a spotlight on how Texas was shortchanging special education for more than a decade. When federal education officials did their own investigation, they estimated that over 13 years, 32,000 students missed out on services they should have gotten. One of the biggest problems was with dyslexia services. That learning disability was never classified under special education, and that reduced oversight and enforcement. But this session lawmakers changed that, and will now help schools pay for interventions. The moves give parents and advocates hope for the future.

Dysart Unified’s preschool program for students with disabilities, which is offered at each of its elementary schools and staffed with teams of teachers, therapists and paraprofessionals, has become a model for Arizona. It’s the kind of inclusive, widespread program that experts say is ideal for young children with disabilities and can lead to impressive outcomes. Some children do so well in these programs they no longer need special education services by the time they enter school. But comprehensive programs like the one in Dysart are a rarity, especially in a state where public pre-K is not yet widely available for all students, let alone children with disabilities.

The American educational system has a difficult time understanding dyslexia and an even harder time identifying children with dyslexia in order to provide the correct intervention for students who are native English speakers. When a school has the added challenge of identifying struggling English language learners (ELLs), the task becomes an even more complicated process, and often, these kids are completely missed. But that does not have to be the case. Children who are learning English are just as likely to have dyslexia as their native-English-speaking counterparts, and there is a way to identify dyslexia in these children. The difference is that dyslexia might appear in the native language quite as vividly as it will when they attempt to learn English.

The beauty—and fragility—of our oceans and the variety of life that they support are highlighted in these recently published, abundantly illustrated titles.

As far back as 1977, early-elementary teachers spent more than twice as much time on reading as on science and social studies combined. But since 2001, when the federal No Child Left Behind legislation made standardized reading and math scores the yardstick for measuring progress, the time devoted to both subjects has only grown. In turn, the amount of time spent on social studies and science has plummeted—especially in schools where test scores are low. All of which raises a disturbing question: What if the medicine we have been prescribing is only making matters worse, particularly for poor children? What if the best way to boost reading comprehension is not to drill kids on discrete skills but to teach them, as early as possible, the very things we’ve marginalized—including history, science, and other content that could build the knowledge and vocabulary they need to understand both written texts and the world around them?

While many students eagerly count down the last few days of the school year, the start of summer break is a more anxious prospect for students in and on the verge of homelessness. “Letting these kids go in the summer, which sounds great, is for many homeless kids the worst time in their life,” said Ralph da Costa Nunez, the president of the Institute for Children, Poverty, and Homelessness. That’s why programs like the Bossier Schools Summer Blast program here are working to help the most vulnerable students keep the academic and social supports they enjoy while school is in session. Nearly half of Bossier Parish’s 23,000 students live in poverty and 400 are homeless. Blast Camp provides three full-day weeks for students in grades 2-5 who are homeless or in foster care. Campers get free transportation, t-shirts, and breakfast, lunch, and afternoon snacks. Four days a week, they have hands-on classes in reading, math, science, and art with district teachers and community groups. On Fridays, the campers go on field trips to local museums, nature centers, and the local emergency services center.

Readers have been very good about suggesting titles and I haven’t added every last one of them yet, but don’t stop! If you don’t see one of of your favorites here, please let me know in the comments and I’ll update continuously. Remember, the statue must be of a character from a book. Real life figures that just happened to be connected to books in some way don’t quite count. Extra points if you can list the location and the name of the sculptor.

When teacher Kay Nelson directs her class at Hamlin Robinson School to spell a word, she helps them break down every step. Spell the word “monster,” she tells her students. How many syllables does it have? What is the vowel sound in the first syllable? The second? Spell it out loud. Spell it in the air with your hand. Write it on the paper on your desk.Her class, 15 children in all, spell the word out loud, in unison. Fifteen students raise their hands and write big, loopy letters in the air. Fifteen hands pick up pencils and write the word on paper, in cursive. Nelson teaches fourth grade. But in this class of 15, there are students reading at the first-grade level, and also the fifth grade. Most children here entered this private school in the Central District in third grade, diagnosed with a language-based learning disability such as dyslexia that was derailing their educations.

“Reading logs” are forms that, typically, parents have to sign showing that their children have read for a certain period of time each night. They’re pretty common—I suspect that any of us who are parents and/or teachers have had some experience with them. But do they do more harm than good in alienating students from reading? This four-part series will explore that question.Today, Mary Beth Nicklaus, Beth Jarzabek, Jennifer Casa-Todd, Jennifer Orr, and Leah Wilson contribute their responses.

My school is one of many whose ELA departments have moved from a focus on whole-class novels to independent reading and reading partnerships (both pairs and clubs). These combine the essential elements of choice, volume, engagement, and quality talk, which professor of education Richard Allington asserts are foundational to quality literacy education. What follows are a few digital tools for helping teachers and students from upper elementary through high school support choice and shared reading.

Young children who spend more time learning about the relationship between letters and sounds are better at counting, calculating, and recognizing numbers, a new study has found. Researchers from Liverpool John Moores University in England looked at the reading and math learning experiences that young children have at home with parents. At the end of their last year of preschool, researchers tested students’ early number skills. Among all of the factors researchers asked parents about, only practice with letter-sound interactions positively predicted children’s ability to count, calculate, and recognize numbers, when controlling for other factors including socioeconomic status. Number experiences didn’t predict this variance. And other code-focused literacy activities that didn’t focus on letter sounds—for example, reciting the alphabet—also didn’t have the same effect. Why does learning about the sounds that letters have anything to do with math skills? One possible explanation is that learning letter-sound interactions gives children the tools to understand abstract symbolic systems—the idea that a printed symbol on a page can stand for something else. If children can understand this concept as it applies to letters and reading, it might be easier for them to apply it to numbers and math.

For kids, summer means freedom. No school, no homework — and for some, no reading. Unfortunately, this can lead to something called the summer slide. The summer slide is not a fun water park ride. It’s not even the scorching hot piece of playground equipment we’ve all learned to avoid in the summer. Rather, it’s the phenomenon of children losing academic skills — for instance, a decline in their reading ability — that can occur over the summer months. According to the National Summer Learning Association, summers spent without reading can lead to a cumulative learning loss that puts kids at a significant disadvantage in school. That’s where libraries come in. Families often come to the library for programs, and once there, they browse the shelves. “Libraries play an important role in the summer months with flexible reading programs, but also through games and fun events,” says Westbank librarian Colleen Cunningham.

Half a century later, the story of the first lunar landing still has the capacity to astound. These picture books, many with all-ages appeal, combine artful, accurate texts and wondrous images to introduce a new generation to the Apollo program — and some of the 410,000 people who made it possible.

It’s summer break, but 14 rising third-graders spent a recent morning at Denver’s McMeen Elementary learning about proper nouns. After fastening imaginary bow ties around their necks — a reminder that the nouns were “proper” — the students called out words that fit the bill. Some of the 14 students were learning English as a second language. Others were native English speakers who struggle in reading. For 3½ weeks this summer, they all signed up to spend their mornings practicing literacy and language skills, and their afternoons doing fun activities as part of Denver Public Schools’ “summer academy.” The academy, which is free for families, has several purposes. It started years ago as a way to help English language learners maintain the progress they made during the school year. For nearly 30,000 of Denver’s 93,000 students, English is a second language; the most common first language is Spanish. Denver Public Schools has for decades been under a federal court order to better serve English language learners, and the academy is part of its strategy.

Meet the most necessary and least loved age range of children’s books. You haven’t truly lived until you’ve stared deep down into the eyes of a parent that is truly desperate for something for their 6-year-old to read. I have been carefully combing through every last easy book and early chapter book I could get my grubby little hands on and, with the help of my co-workers, I’ve come up with a good, if imperfect, list. Things I’d change about it? While it’s nice to see some Muslim and Latinx characters in these books, where are the Black and Asian-American kids? Suggestions in these areas that you’ve seen with 2019 pub dates are welcome (and necessary). To define our terms a little, when I say that something is an “Easy Book” I mean that it has a simplified text for beginning readers. Even so, the complexity of the text can vary. I will indicate when a book is appropriate for the earliest of readers when I can. An “Early Chapter Book” is a step above. These are books of varying length with chapters inside, but plenty of pictures. Again, they vary widely, so I’ll sort them from least complex to most complex on this list.

Children’s literature fans can add a new kid lit character sculpture to their list of places to visit. Along with the book-inspired statues such as the Make Way for Ducklings Mallard family in Boston, Ramona, Henry, and Ribsy in Portland, and Harry the Dirty Dog in Sheboygan, WI, fans can now plan a road trip to visit Mo Willems’s famed Knuffle Bunny in the Park Slope Library Storytelling Garden at the Brooklyn (NY) Public Library branch. Willems—whose Caldecott-winning Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale was set in the New York City neighborhood—came to the unveiling and read his beloved book to a group of fans before uncovering the sculpture that he designed and Chad Rimer created. Anyone planning a themed summer road trip should know that Knuffle Bunny—and the Mallards, Ramona, and Harry—are just a few of the many children’s literature statues throughout the country.

Mo Willems feels like he’s going back to second grade. The acclaimed children’s author is the first ever Education Artist-in-Residence at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and even with all his awards and bestsellers, he says it’s pretty scary. “I get to be really, really terrified in all kinds of new different ways,” Willems says — but that doesn’t mean he’s not having fun. “There are all these sandboxes that I don’t usually get to play in.” Willems — who created the Pigeon series, Knuffle Bunny, and Elephant & Piggie — is exploring all sorts of artistic sandboxes at the Kennedy Center. He’s collaborating with Ben Folds on a “symphonic spectacular”; he’s working with Jason Moran on a Jazz Doodle Jam; and he’s adapting Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus into a musical. In addition to delighting kids, Willems hopes he’ll inspire some grown-ups, too. Children will create if they see the adults around them creating, he says — and it doesn’t matter if you’re “good.”

A study published in 2017 by the Early Childhood Research Quarterly explores the short-term outcomes of the Connecticut School Readiness Program (CSRP), one of three early learning programs in Connecticut that serve three- and four-year olds. Programs operating under CSRP range from part-day and part-year to yearlong, extended-day services for eligible three- and four-year-olds. At least 60 percent of the seats must be filled by children from families at or below 75 percent of the state median income. In 2018, CSRP programs served over 12,000 children. Researchers found overall positive outcomes in reading and math scores for children who attended CSRP, but the magnitude and significance of those effects is inconsistent across different racial, ethnic, and economic subgroups. As in other areas of the country, early care and education costs in Connecticut impose a major financial burden on working families.

Just over a year ago, the Morton Grove (IL) Public Library, located in a Chicago suburb, began offering special storytime sessions to help young children deal with emotions such as fear and anger. The library also provides storytimes related to potty training. Amy Goodchild, a youth services associate who has a background in school counseling, came up with the ideas. “We’re using books as tools to address different situations, both giving parents the tools they need to be successful [and] showing people what we have in the library,” says Courtney Schroeder, who oversees youth services at the library. Morton Grove’s mission to help little patrons handle big emotions is one of many bold innovations in early learning services that include addressing difficult feelings, tech exposure, and guiding parents through developmental milestones. While traditional storytime isn’t going away, public libraries are exploring new strategies to introduce important concepts to toddlers and preschoolers in age-appropriate ways, while also providing support to families—and to the librarians who serve them.

Let’s begin by talking about the elephant in the room—phonics instruction has a bad reputation for being boring, dull … I could go on. But it doesn’t have to be! Many programs include sensory integration, songs, poems, and other engaging resources. This video, showing students segmenting and blending words orally and with their bodies, is one of many examples. And just like with any other type of instruction, you can always infuse your own style and flavor.n Most importantly, students need it. The research is overwhelming: Students require systematic instruction to crack the alphabetic code. If they aren’t reading fluently by 2nd grade, students have a tough road ahead, particularly when considering the complex text demands of new, more rigorous college- and career-ready standards like the Common Core State Standards.

One of the first images in “A Child’s Book of Poems,” a 1969 collection illustrated by the American artist Gyo Fujikawa, shows a boy on a hill, heading to a village under an enormous sun. This sun, unlike the real one, encourages staring: it’s layered with stunning oranges and yellows, a flourish of bright beauty filling the sky. The boy wears round sunglasses and a cap, and has a bindle slung over his shoulder—he’s contemplating the quiet harmony of the village and the celestial wonder that illuminates it. In Fujikawa’s children’s books—she illustrated fifty books, forty-five of which she wrote, and several are still in print—these elements consistently appear in harmony: the beauty and power of the natural world and the earthly pleasures of the people walking around in it.

I write “summer” in the headline here in spite of the fact that the temperature outside in the Evanston/Chicago area is hovering around the low 60s. And still onward we proceed! Let’s go about making predictions that will, in the end, only break our hearts when they turn out to be way off. And yet, there’s is an off chance that one or two of these books really will make it to the finish line. Which ones? Let’s see if you can figure it out …

Are you worried that your elementary school-age child is going to lose sight of her sight words over the summer? That a season without math facts will leave her left behind when it’s time to start the next grade? In many cases, those concerns are overblown, said Marina Umaschi Bers, professor and chair at the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development at Tufts. The summer is a time to play, to enjoy nature and connect with others. Indeed, the learning might continue, but parents shouldn’t feel they have to replicate classroom lessons at home. In fact, summer is the perfect time for children to practice some of the very important skills that there sometimes isn’t room for in school. Tufts Now asked Bers how to mix summer enrichment and fun: emphasize social learning, don’t overdo screen time, emphasize reading for pleasure, keep an eye on balance, and cultivate your child’s interests.

There are many ways to measure a library’s success. In rural areas, it sometimes has less to do with circulation or program participation and more with meeting a range of needs for a community of 2,500 or fewer people. In Trinidad, CO, one librarian spends most of her time securing food and services for her town’s homeless population. In Show Low, AZ, another librarian runs “adulting” classes to teach teenagers “the skills they don’t get in high school anymore.” And in Stanley, ID, the library’s Wi-Fi is such a draw that the librarian installed a router outside and added benches and power outlets so people can get online even when the library is closed. In many of these communities, “the library is the living room of the town,” says Clancy Pool, the branch manager of the St. John (WA) Library. But more than a homey living room, libraries, as sociologist Eric Klinenberg wrote in a 2018 New York Times article, provide vital social infrastructures that “shape the way people interact,” like other shared spaces such as childcare centers, churches, synagogues, and parks. That can be particularly true for rural libraries.

Every teacher has them. The kids who sit quietly in the back of class, who don’t raise their hand if called upon. The ones who shudder at the idea of group work: The introverts. Those kids can have a tough time in a society where being called “outgoing” is usually a compliment, where class participation counts towards your grade, and where schools are pushed to teach students so-called “21st century skills” such as collaboration, said Ashley Overton, an assistant professor at Trine University in Angola, Ind., during a session at the International Society for Technology in Education. In the classroom, it’s important for teachers to remember that introverts like to “work slowly and deliberately,” Overton said. Teachers usually give students about three seconds to respond to a question. That’s just not going to be enough time for most introverts, she said, who are more likely to listen than to talk, and like to think carefully before they speak up. Technology can allow students to participate in a way that gives them time to think and collect their thoughts, said Megan Tolin, a former high school science teacher who is now the director of technology, innovation, and pedagogy at Indiana University School of Education, and presented with Overton at ISTE.

When the Reading Rocket mobile library pulls into neighborhoods across Hall County, it’s as if the ice cream truck has arrived. But this bus feeds eager young minds on stories, with no risk of an ice-cream headache. In fact, it’s “brain freeze” that local educators are trying to prevent. Students may relish summer break, but learning loss is a dreaded consequence of the recess. The annual “summer slide” in academic achievement, particularly in reading among elementary-age students from lower-income households, has local school districts looking to new, preventative initiatives. The Reading Rocket first hit the road a few years ago, but this year Hall County Schools decided “we would try to ramp it up a little bit,” said Kristi Crumpton, media services coordinator.

The books reviewed this week include eye-catching illustrated anthologies of poems, written in various poetic forms, that tell stories and convey information on a variety of topics. There is also a multi-voiced historical novel in verse that will engage and ignite the interest of older readers. Reading aloud the poems in these collections will encourage an appreciation of the beauty and power of poetry.

The family that plays video games together stays together. When parents become digital mentors, children can learn empathy and resilience and prepare for careers. From NPR’s Life Kit, Here are four ways to harness the advantages of screen time. 1. Whenever possible, share screens with your kids. With the littlest kids, treat screens like a picture book. As they get older, bond over movie nights and video game time, and talk with them about what they’re playing and watching solo. Prompt them to reflect on the positive lessons and the negative messages they’re getting — a process called “active mediation,” which helps you connect with your kids and helps them become more media savvy.

If managing your kids’ summer schedules is running you ragged, you may want to consider the online option. Apps, websites and even full-fledged virtual camps offer a wide range of summer learning opportunities, and can provide the ideal activity during a “staycation” or a fill-in between other activities. Online learning also gives kids something unique: individual attention. You, a babysitter, a grandparent, or even an older sibling act as virtual camp counselors, leading — and even learning alongside — your kids. With many of the virtual camps below, you can mix and match activities to tailor the experience to your kids’ interests. Expect to be more involved if you go for the free, choose-your-own-adventure camps. But fee-based camps call for some adult participation, too. Check out these offerings.

Arkansas school librarians Kim Moss and Carol Halbmaier have spent years trying to solve the issue of summer book access among some of their students. Over the years, the women have discussed allowing kids to check out books over break or opening up the school library one day a week. Their dream: turning an old ice cream truck into a summer bookmobile. “We joked about an ice cream truck just because we thought that was something we could drive,” says Halbmaier, the K-4 librarian at Osage Creek Elementary. The summer bookmobile idea, however, was no joke. Throughout their shared history—teaching kindergarten together 20 years ago, as librarians in the district at separate schools for years, and now for the last two years, sharing a library in the same building that houses an elementary and middle school in Bentonville, AR—Moss and Halbmaier held onto this same goal. Then during an unrelated meeting in spring 2018, middle school social studies instructional specialist Sarah DeWitt mentioned that old school buses are put out of service each year and perhaps one could be turned into a bookmobile.

Since his last visit to Shenandoah University four years ago, children’s author, poet and educator Kwame Alexander has rediscovered his passion for speaking through music. He made this realization when he did a reading from his book “Booked” at a Washington, D.C., bookstore accompanied by his friend Randy Preston on guitar. “Booked” is about a boy who loves soccer but hates reading because of his dad, said Alexander, who brought his passion for speaking and storytelling to SU on Monday for the first day of the five-day Children’s Literature Conference, now in its 34th year. “The kids were loving it,” Alexander told an audience of conference-goers in Halpin-Harrison Hall, many of whom were K-12 teachers. “For the next hour, Randy and I did this set of music and poetry and literature, and here’s the thing y’all, I rediscovered my passion.” Alexander, 50, of New York, is a New York Times bestselling author who has written 32 books, including the verse novel “The Crossover” that won the 2015 Newbery Medal for “most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.” He is a graduate of Virginia Tech.

These days, schools have to do more than just teach kids to use technology—they have to make sure parents understand what’s going on in their students digital lives, too. “We have an obligation to parents to help understand how to use technology,” said Rita Oates, the former district technology director for Miami-Dade County Schools during a session at the International Society for Technology in Education annual conference here. That’s especially true, she said, for districts with 1-to-1 initiatives. “If we’re handing them an iPad or handing them a tablet to go home” we need to teach them how to help their child use it responsibly, she said. One way to make that happen: Family Technology Night. That could be its own standalone thing, or a session at another event, like back-to-school night, she said. Oates suggested district leaders kick off conversations with parents by asking questions about their child’s technology use, their anxieties, and more.

In a moving night of gratitude for those who came before and celebration of current authors and illustrators, some of the biggest names in children’s literature gathered at the Library of Congress on Friday night to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Coretta Scott King (CSK) Book Awards. The CSK Book Awards are given to “outstanding African American authors and illustrators of books for children and young adults that demonstrate an appreciation of African American culture and universal human values.” In a room filled with past winners, there were speeches from Librarian of Congress Dr. Carla Hayden and others, and there was celebration through song, dance, and spoken word. Kwame Alexander recited an original work he created for the event. In it, Alexander compared the annual CSK awards breakfast to going to church. And if the CSK breakfast ceremony is “First Baptist ALA,” he said, then the award-winning books are the hymns, and the authors are “the choir making a joyful noise.”

Preschool kids are full of curiosity so it’s the perfect time to introduce them to science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) concepts. At Educare New Orleans preschool teachers have been trained to teach STEM ideas through play. They set up play centers that explore concepts like building and states of matter. At first many of the adults thought the material would go over kids’ heads, but they’ve been excited that when done in a play-based, age appropriate way that includes lots of hands-on discovery, the kids love it.

Boston has a robust summer reading program, including events that bring families to the library. The Codman Square branch was handing out pamphlets about the summer reading programs and information about free meals at the library over the summer. The city hopes families might connect with books and meet librarians who can offer some guidance. Boston has also put together a summer reading challenge and a well-regarded list of recommended books for a narrow range of grade levels — for example, three to five. Staff at the Boston Public Library and Boston Public Schools, including teachers and school librarians, compiled those lists. The WGBH Foundation and Scholastic Press are the other sponsors of the program. Research shows students should read books appropriate for their reading level and relevant to their interests over the summer, but it’s also important for them to receive feedback and support. Otherwise, children lose reading skills, and the loss is especially pronounced in lower-income families who have unreliable access to books.

Teachers: Are you worried your students have developed “Nomophobia” (the fear of being without a mobile phone) or Textaphrenia (the fear of being disconnected)? You’re not alone, according to a survey of 225 educators from around the world who teach in grades K-16. The results of the survey will be front and center during a discussion of these issues at the International Society for Technology in Education’s national conference this week. Thirty-four percent of educators surveyed said they were distracted by student use of mobile devices, including phones and tablets, during class. Eighty percent believe their students “multi-task” during instructional time, meaning that they are on their devices when they are supposed to be paying attention to a lesson. And 61 percent believe that “multi-tasking” affected students’ ability to learn.

Summer hasn’t (officially) started yet, but the literary world is already revving up for September: Publishing houses have started sending out their fall releases, and in New York, the Brooklyn Book Festival, one of the city’s largest book events, is assembling this year’s roster. Mo Willems is this year’s winner of the Best of Brooklyn award, which is presented annually to a writer who “exemplifies or speaks to the spirit of Brooklyn.” Willems is the first picture-book author to receive the award and joins such previous winners as Jacqueline Woodson, Colson Whitehead and James McBride. Willems, the Caldecott-winning author of books like “Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale” and “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!” was one of the writers who “jumped right on board” when the Brooklyn Book Festival began in 2006, Liz Koch, one of the festival’s co-producers, said. “This year, with the fifth anniversary of our Children’s Day, we felt like it would be a wonderful moment to celebrate an iconic children’s book author,” Ms. Koch said, adding that it was also a way of thanking him for his support. “Brooklyn is where I found the Pigeons and Knuffle Bunnies that were to become my muses,” Willems said in a statement, “as well as the community of writers, thinkers and doers that would excite and challenge me to do my best work.”

Preschool is an important time for children to build pro-social behaviors and learn to get along with other kids in a school setting. Recently, there has been more emphasis on academic preparation in preschool, but just as important, are the social and emotional skills kids will need to succeed when they move into kindergarten. Educare New Orleans Early Childhood School is a public pre-K that focuses on giving kids the language to talk about their emotions from an early age. Their play-based curriculum gives teachers lots of opportunities to help students build self-regulation skills. Educators here say success is when a child moves into elementary school with the self-regulation skills they need to focus and learn at the next level.

The U.S. has rich linguistic diversity with over 300 languages spoken. This linguistic diversity is evident in our nation’s public schools where close to one in ten students are English learners (ELs). Although ELs attend schools throughout the country, most ELs are concentrated in urban areas. In April, the Council of Great City Schools, a national membership organization focused on addressing the needs of K-12 public schools in urban settings, released a report centered on the EL students in their 74 member districts. Specifically, the Council surveyed districts on EL enrollment (i.e., total numbers, percentages, enrollment by school level, languages spoken, and ELs receiving special education services), academic performance, staffing, professional development, and Title III allocations. Several compelling findings emerged from the report, including that ELs are the fastest-growing student subgroup within member districts, now making up 17 percent of all student enrollment.

Reading and writing are critical, and making opportunities for children to read and write has been a calling throughout my life. I came from an impoverished community. Through reading and writing, I was able to gain scholarships and loans to attend college. Since then, I’ve always made it a point to pay it back. From donating to the Little Free Library at Lot 12 of a trailer park in rural Illinois to working with inner-city students on writing skills, I’ve seen the advances children make once provided opportunities to engage in literacy. Along the way, I’ve seen various methods of making literacy happen for students.

Schools often have trouble identifying English-language learners with learning disabilities—and most states don’t offer formal guidance to help educators diagnose and support the students. A report from the National Center on Educational Outcomes found that just nine states have publicly available manuals designed to help educators. That’s despite a 2016 recommendation from the U.S. Department of Education that states should produce clear policies and guidance to help schools distinguish between English-learners who struggle with the language and those who have learning disabilities.

An updated infographic on diversity in children’s books has been released by Sarah Park Dahlen, an associate professor of MLIS at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, MN, and illustrator David Huyck. While this 2018 version shows improvement in representation since 2015, the creators of the image added cracks in the mirrors to illustrate the continued misrepresentation of the underrepresented communities—the quantity of books may have gone up, but it isn’t all good news as that doesn’t necessarily indicate accuracy and quality in the titles.

Chapter 5 of “David Copperfield” begins with the grave announcement, “I Am Sent Away From Home.” David is only 7 when his hardhearted stepfather packs him off, and weeping so copiously that eventually he must spread his handkerchief on the horse’s back to dry. Anne Shirley arrives at Green Gables only to spend her first weeks dreading a return to the orphanage. The Pevensie children, evacuated from London during the Blitz, stumble into a new world through the back of a wardrobe and soon fight battles of their own. Fiction is full of children whose lives are upended when they move, tipping them into new adventures. But moving isn’t just about forging into unknown territory, as any kid knows. Moving is about what we leave behind. The spirited protagonists of four new middle-grade novels find that when they’re taken from the lives they once knew, they must reckon with their pasts as well as the future.

“My child just hates reading.” As an educational therapist, I’ve heard these words countless times from parents of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD or ADD). For these kids, the act of reading itself may be mentally taxing and unenjoyable. Of course, if they also have dyslexia, it’s key that they receive phonics and fluency intervention. But many of my students have already received interventions and improved their reading skills to grade level — and still, the reading anxiety from their years of struggle remains, and their mental energy just can’t sustain the task. As an educational therapist, my approach here — in trying to reduce their reading anxiety — is to use their interests, along with available technology. Here are five strategies I’ve found to be effective in engaging students in free-time reading.

When Gia Bastien, of Towson, was a child growing up in a rural area of Maine, her parents, trying to protect their African American daughter in an overwhelmingly white state, pulled her out of school in the fourth grade. Bastien, who now lives in Loch Raven Village, said she struggled for years to catch up on what she had missed, especially in reading and literacy skills. She succeeded; she graduated just a few weeks ago from the Community College of Baltimore County and will be attending Morgan State University on a full scholarship in the fall. Despite her success, Bastien said she wants something better for her three sons. “I don’t want to see my children struggle,” she said. So, for the past three years when school ended, Bastien has taken her children to the Towson library and has them sign up for the Summer Reading Challenge. “In my household, reading is definitely important,” Bastien said.

Reading is the only activity consistently linked to summer learning (Kim and Quinn, 2013). On the surface, summer reading assignments and programs appear to address this concern—ensuring that all children will read at least a few books over the summer and head off potential learning loss. The problem? Assigning books for summer reading can’t guarantee that reading takes place and could have a negative effect on young readers’ long-term reading interest and motivation. Sending an eighth-grader home with Lord of the Flies to read over the summer is unlikely to improve their reading ability or their enthusiasm for reading. If required summer reading doesn’t really work, what does? Access to books and the ability to choose what you want to read are the two factors consistently linked to both reading achievement and the development of intrinsic reading motivation. Required summer reading presumes that all children have access to the books, computers, the Internet, or school supplies necessary to read and complete assignments, which puts our neediest children at a disadvantage from the start. The primary reason many children don’t read much over the summer is not a lack of motivation or interest. They don’t have any books to read.

When I was compiling a list of different kinds of stories, poems, horoscopes, etc. I wanted to see in my book Funny Girl, I was hoping to appeal to as wide an array of interests as possible. Sportsy kids. Kids who like real stories. Comics. You name it. And, of course, I wanted some Nonfiction in there. Unfortunately, I learned pretty quickly that if you ask a Nonfiction author to be funny on command, oftentimes that very request stumps them. And who can blame them? How do you pluck humor from reality when that reality isn’t inherently hilarious? It got me to thinking. Funny Nonfiction isn’t particularly common, but it most certainly exists. But how do you go about it? Let’s look at some of the funnier books of 2019 and see how they tackled the challenge.

Learning doesn’t have to fall by the wayside just because school is out. Use these five parent pro tips to keep your child learning and having fun over the summer months. (1) “Summer”ize your Summer Activities. After completing a fun activity with your child this summer – such as going to the zoo, park, pool, etc. – have your child tell you about it. Ask questions like: What happened? Who was there? Why was this significant? What was the most important thing that took place? The more you engage with your child and allow them to give detailed accounts of activities, the stronger their summarizing and paraphrasing skills will be once they return to school.

Did you know when parents and caregivers are involved in their children’s reading habits, the children are more likely to be frequent readers later in life? When I found this out, a light bulb went off and the Family Book Study was born. I like to think of it as a movement that bridges literacy and family togetherness. Thinking back to my own childhood, I remember reading picture books with my grandma and chapter books with my sister. Through these experiences, I saw firsthand how books can enhance family time. To get this educational family reading event off the ground, I first reached out to my daughter’s school and got the staff on board. It took shape as an evening of togetherness that meets twice a year at the school. The benefits of Family Book Study go beyond literacy development. It has helped strengthen family bonds and allowed parents to be intentional about reading quality literature with their children at home.

At Middle School 88 in Park Slope, Brooklyn, there is a security guard at the entrance, long hallways plastered with art, and students, slouching on a sofa, staring into their phones. It is a pretty typical scene. Except for Room 128. For most of this school year, the room has contained the makings for a handmade, full-size wooden boat. Specifically an Optimist, a vessel a bit over seven feet. Optis, as the boats are affectionately known, are designed for small, light bodies, or for sailors 15 years old and younger. They’re wildly popular. About 850 of them compete in the annual Optimist World Championship, which will be held next month in Antigua. In October, a group of students began the process of building the Opti in Room 128. Under the direction of Laura Botel, the program coordinator of Brooklyn Boatworks, a nonprofit after-school program, and volunteers from the organization, the students met for two hours a week. Here, they mastered new manual skills and a new vocabulary, including words like transom, daggerboard and thwart.

Third grade is a pivotal year. Up until that point, students are learning to read. When they return for fourth grade, students read in order to learn. Fourth grade texts teach content and skilled readers will gain knowledge from what they’re reading. Third grade is also the first year students in Pennsylvania take a standardized test. It’s a data point that policy makers use to evaluate how schools are performing. Some educators argue that standardized test scores aren’t a great measurement for a number of reasons; they say it’s a snapshot of a single day, and not all kids are good at taking tests. In Pittsburgh Public Schools, nearly half of students scored below proficient on last year’s state standardized test. Overall, the state’s second largest district is performing worse than the state’s average.

Tennessee’s statewide network of literacy coaches is being dismantled this month after funding for that program was not renewed in the budget proposed by Gov. Bill Lee and approved by the legislature. And the future of popular summer reading camps started four years ago under Gov. Bill Haslam’s administration is uncertain after a federal grant was pulled, even as participating children have showed gains in their reading comprehension and increased their motivation to read. Both are key components of Read to be Ready, a major initiative that launched amid fanfare in 2016 as Tennessee tried to address national test results showing that only a third of its fourth-graders were considered proficient readers. The idea was to hone in on reading development in early elementary grades with the goal of getting 75 percent of the state’s third-graders proficient by 2025. The goal remains lofty and Tennessee still has a long way to climb, but the state was encouraged last year when a one-year jump of 2.3 percent helped to get almost 37 percent of its third-graders reading on or above grade level.

There are a lot of skills necessary to succeed in school that aren’t directly about mastering content, including the ability to recognize, name and control ones emotions. The school day often comes with lots of emotion, everything from elation to frustration, which makes it the perfect place to practice self-regulation. Students must also learn and practice how to prioritize and tackle tasks for academic and life success. Executive function often develops in middle school when the skills become even more important as students juggle work from multiple classes with many deadlines. Learning how to prioritize work not only makes it feel more manageable, it also helps students use work time efficiently.

With summer approaching, many public libraries are about to look like an annual school tricky tray. Prizes, baskets of books, coupons for local businesses, and more will be on display to draw in young patrons. It’s all part of their summer reading programs. According to SLJ’s Summer Reading/Summer Learning Survey, incentives are a huge part of summer reading programs. Those who argue against offering prizes say they often work to bring families into the library to sign up for the summer program. They also get students who aren’t avid readers to participate. Drawing families to the library is clearly important.

As adults, no limits are placed upon us when we enter a library, walk through the bookstore doors or power up our Kindle App. If we do not trust our students to make these same choices, how can we expect them to grow into the readers they have the potential to be? In their recent book, Game Changer!: Book Access for All Kids, Donalyn Miller and Colby Sharp also tout the value of self-selected reading. The cited benefits include a growing sense of confidence, ownership and autonomy as both readers and learners. With more choice in books comes an increase in the amount of reading students actually do. As with any skill, the more students read, the better they are at it, leading to improved reading ability and greater achievement in other content areas. Finally, and most important to me, choice in books gives rise to lifelong readers.

When it comes to getting K–12 students fired up about summer programs, libraries often highlight contests and events to bring them through the door. With schools, however, branches shift that focus, emphasizing the impact of summer slide, and how their reading programs may mitigate the effect of being out of a classroom for months. SLJ ’s recent survey about summer programming found that 24 percent of public libraries also partner with schools over the summer, from simply getting the word out about programs to more in-depth connections.

According to a study done by the Colorado Department of Education, children in low-income households fall behind an average of 2 months in reading during the summer. And, summer slide is cumulative, with these learning losses building up each summer. The basic solution? Stay engaged in learning: read, write, do some math. I’m fully supportive of those ideas. To me, there’s nothing better than a nice glass of lemonade and a good book. I want that for our kids too. And while it may be tempting to pull out flashcards and stock up on workbooks, let’s not forget that life experience also teaches a lot. The more one’s horizons are expanded, the more we can comprehend when we read. At a loss for where to begin? Let me see if I can get you started…

Differences in summer enrichment between poor and wealthy students may not contribute much to long-term achievement gaps, according to a new analysis. Researcher Paul von Hippel set out to replicate the landmark 1982 Beginning School Study, which tracked more than 800 Baltimore schoolchildren from kindergarten through grade 8. That study found reading achievement gaps between high- and low-poverty schools widened each summer, ultimately tripling the size of their reading gaps from the start of primary school to the end of middle school in 1990. However, those results disappeared when von Hippel tried to replicate the study using newer tests, which use different formats and control for the difficulty of test items in ways that the earlier tests did not, adapting the difficulty of test questions as students move through the assessment. More generally, expanded learning time has been associated with better achievement. In separate research, von Hippel and his colleagues found that schools that attempt to relieve summer learning loss by more evenly spacing their 180 school days across the year are not associated with narrowed achievement gaps, However, schools that expanded their traditional school calendar to 210 days—often including some summer school or Saturdays—were associated with better achievement.