You are here: > Newsletters > Reading Rockets News

Reading Rockets News

November 2009

LD Awareness Month

Highlights in this issue:

Find links to past issues here.

In Focus

Adventures in Family Learning

Read, learn, and explore the world everyday with your child. Not only will you be modeling a zest for books and nurturing the natural curiosity in every child — but you will also help your child build powerful vocabulary, comprehension, and critical thinking skills.

Read alouds should be an active experience. Try this PEER method when reading with your child.
See article >

Build a home library with your child. Finding inexpensive or free books together is kind of like a treasure hunt and allows kids to create a collection that really matches their interests.
See article >

Field trip! Whether you are going to a museum or the neighborhood park, here are some simple ideas to make the outing a rich learning experience.
See article >

Especially for teachers:

Family literacy bags: in this school-to-home project, you can encourage hands-on activities centered around themed fiction and nonfiction books.
See family literacy bags >

Bring family stories into your classroom. Using family-based writing projects, you can build a connection with parents, and help children see the value in their own heritage and in the diversity around them.
See article >

Classroom Strategies

Choral Reading

Choral reading - reading aloud in unison with a whole class or group of students - is a great way to help strengthen students' fluency, self-confidence, and motivation. Many kids find it fun, too. See examples of how to use choral reading in science and social studies as well as language arts.
Go to strategy >

Developing Fluent Readers >

Books & Authors

Goin' Someplace Special: Our Interview with Patricia and Frederick McKissack

The McKissack's have written stories about the African American experience for more than 25 years. They draw from some of their own childhood favorites — Brer Rabbit, fairy tales, myths, and the poetry of Langston Hughes — to create beautifully drawn characters who learn to use their wits and appreciate their own gifts. In Goin' Someplace Special, young 'Tricia Ann makes her way to one of the only places in 1950s segregated Nashville that welcomes her with open arms: the public library.
Watch interview >

Our Newest Booklist: Thanks for the Dreamers

Artist, chef, inventor, storyteller, tree-planter, dreamer, do-er. In this lovely collection of books you'll meet a group of incredible people — some famous and some not — who have each made a difference in the world.
See booklist >

Listen! I Have a Story to Tell…

Legends, pourquoi stories, and trickster tales — Native American tradition is rich in storytelling. For book recommendations as well as links to classroom activities and other web resources, browse our sister site Colorín Colorado.
Visit American Indian/Alaska Native Heritage Month website >

Ideas for Teachers

School Psychologists: New Roles in Helping Struggling Readers

School psychologists can support your school's Response to Intervention (RTI) efforts in many ways, from system-wide program design to assessment and intervention with individual students.
Read article >

Teaching with Primary Sources

Warning: once you start browsing in the Library of Congress teacher resources section you may never come up for air. Lesson plans, themed resources, and professional development activities all center around the use of primary sources. Here's a taste: learn how to analyze photographs and maps, or puzzle out the meaning of the content of Lincoln's pockets on the night of his assassination.
Explore Library of Congress resources >

Understanding the "Silent Period" with English Language Learners

Two kindergarten teachers share their techniques for communicating verbally and nonverbally with ELLs in their classroom. Children in this silent period need time to listen, absorb, and observe.
See article >

Ideas for Parents

Raising a Child with a Learning Disability: A Mother's Story

What does a parent do when she suspects her child has learning difficulties and everyone keeps telling her that her child will just grow out of it? In this very personal story, a mother shares her struggle to identify her son's reading difficulties and get him the help he needed to succeed.
Read article >

In this related article, her son shares his own story about what it is like growing up with a learning disability.
Read Marco's story >

What Is a School Psychologist?

School psychologists are trained in both psychology and education to help children succeed academically, socially, and emotionally. Learn more about their role and the kinds of support and services they offer.
Read article >

Read Kiddo Read!

"Dedicated to making kids readers for life." This site includes book recommendations by age group, books for boys, great page turners, interviews with authors, a "first lines" quiz, 12 tried-and-true ways to get your kids reading, and more.
Go to site >

Research & News

Are Achievement Gaps Closing?

The news from a recent survey of testing data from all 50 states, conducted by the Center on Education Policy, is encouraging: Student achievement is going up, and the gaps in test scores between subgroups — such as between African-Americans and whites - are narrowing across all grade levels and subjects. We're still far from closing the achievement gap, however: more than 20 points still separate the scores of white and non-low-income students from those of African-American, Latino, and low-income students.
Read full report >

"Here's a book with something new — you read to me! I'll read to you!
We'll read each page to one another — You'll read one side,
I the other."

— Mary Ann Hoberman, Children's Poet Laureate, from her series You Read to Me, I'll Read to You

Newsletter editors: Joanne Meier and Tina Chovanec