Gorilla or Fish? It’s a Win/Win

“Humans waste words. They toss them like banana peels and leave them to rot. Everyone knows the peels are the best part.”      (from The One and Only Ivan)

Told from the perspective of a silverback gorilla and inspired by a true story, The One and Only Ivan is a book that deservedly won the Newbery Award which was announced earlier this year. Katherine Applegate’s doesn’t waste a single word in this heartwarming tale. She tackles the issues of animals in captivity in a way that will make kids think twice about zoos. Are zoos good or bad? Children will be able to grapple with this question and realize that the question isn’t really boolean.

Cover image taken from npr.org

The Caldecott medal this year was given to John Klassen’s This is Not My Hat. Beautifully illustrated, it tells a tale of a fish who steals a hat from another fish. A great picture book is one that uses illustrations to great effect in the story telling. Even though it’s designed for very young readers, it is refreshing as the main character isn’t exactly one with upstanding character traits (after all he does steal a hat right at the beginning of the story).

In the end, both books are fine examples of storytelling at its best.

Here’s a trailer someone made for The One and Only Ivan:

What Does Censoring Children’s Literature do to Critical Thinking?

It saddened me to read in the news that a book by one of my favorite authors, Patricia Polacco was restricted in a Utah school district on Monday.

Patricia Polacco is a prolific children’s writer and for some of my readers we engage in an author study featuring her books. She tends to write from personal experiences about family and friends and her themes vary widely. Some of her most famous books include:

Thank you Mr. Falker, a book about a young girl with dyslexia who realizes her potential thanks to a fifth grade teacher named Mr. Falker.  The epilogue is quite touching when you realize that the girl with dyslexia is the author.

Pink and Say, a book about two boys (one black and one white) during the Civil War. Another touching book.

Mr. Lincoln’s Way, a book about overcoming bullying.

Thundercake, a book about how the author overcame her fear of thunderstorms.

The book that was banned was called In Our Mothers’ House, which is a story about family or three raised by two mothers. I always worry about children’s books that may contain ‘issues’. Often they can be preachy and end up not being very good literature. This book is simply a good story. We had it in our library, so I read it to my students.

I asked them why they thought this book might be banned for children, and it was quite refreshing to hear their responses. The overwhelming response was, “I think some adults don’t think children can handle stories with sad endings.” Only two children identified the two moms as the possible reason and one child said, “I think it might be about the two moms because in some places, they just don’t get it yet.”

I try really hard not to provide any answers for my students. They need to analyze and think for themselves. I enjoy opportunities to do this. If books are censored, how can children develop critical thinking skills? This doesn’t mean I need to read every book on a banned list, but it’s important to get kids thinking.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/01/utah-school-district-rest_n_1564118.html

Best 2nd Grade Books for 2011

It’s that time of year again where ‘best of 2011’ lists in every conceivable category seem to pop up everywhere. I figured I may as well compile my list of best books for 2nd grade.

In the past few years, there have been many children’s books that would have made my list, except for the fact that they weren’t really suitable for all 2nd graders. Books on those lists would have included Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book and Rebecca Stead’s When You Reach Me (2010 and 2009 Newbery Award Winners). I keep hoping for another book like Kate DiCamillo’s 2004 Newbery winner The Tale of Despereaux, a book that has deep complex characters and themes, that although sometimes dark, are balanced with just the right amount of light for young children. It’s no accident that one of Despereaux’s foes is named Chiaroscuro.

There were many engaging chapter books that 2nd graders gravitated towards this year, but most were books that were part of a series like, Diary of a Wimpy Kid. My list of top 2nd grade books for 2011, therefore, does not include a chapter book. If you have any suggestions, please let me know.

Grandpa Green by Lane Smith

You can say so much with so few words and marvelous images. A great book about memory, aging, gardening, history, family, and much more.

 

Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature by Joyce Sidman, pictures by Beth Krommes

Not surprisingly, Beth Krommes has already won a Caldecott Award. The illustrations are mesmerizing.

 

Press Here by Herve Tullett

For all the people who are averse to reading on a tablet, this book has a great sense of humor in the way one is supposed to interact with a physical book.

 

 

The Chronicles of Harris Burdick (illus. by Chris Van Allsburg; written by various)

Originally published in 1984, The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, was a book of fantastic illustrations, each with only a single caption. These illustrations and captions have been great story starters that have inspired children to write. Now, well known authors like Sherman Alexie, Kate DiCamillo, Stephen King, Jon Scieszka, and Lemony Snicket have all contributed their story to one of the illustrations. I haven’t all the stories yet, but the ones I have are great!

 

The House Baba Built: An Artist’s Childhood In China by Ed Young

An amazingly illustrated memoir of the author’s childhood in Shanghai during WWII.

 

 

I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen

Another book that says so much with so little. It’s also wickedly funny.

 

 

Everything On It by Shel Silverstein

Books that are published posthumously often seem to be a random compilation of odds and ends. That’s not the case with this collection of poems, each as silly, witty, and fun as any in his other collections.

 

The Lego Ideas Book: Unlock Your Imagination by Daniel Lipkowitz

Currently, it’s the most sought after book in my classroom library.

 

 

There are several books that were published this year that I have yet to read, something I hope to do this winter break. Among them are Wonderstruck, Inside Out and Back Again, The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman, and Secrets at Sea. I’m hoping one of these will make a good read-aloud.

Have a wonderful holiday!

 

Am I An Effective Teacher?

There are many ways to evaluate the effectiveness of a teacher: observations, rating forms, informal drop ins, student work, student surveys, and student tests. Many different organizations keep looking for different ways to look at teacher improvement and thus school improvement.

Some ratings are tied to compensation, and others to tenure. Others seem to be done as a formality. Some are pass/fail while others use a rubric: exemplary, proficient, adequate, ineffective. Regardless of the system, for it to be effective, an action path for growth needs to take place. Even if you are an exemplary teacher, there’s always room for growth.

At the same time, positive feedback is only good if it is specific. “Good job!” doesn’t mean anything more than ‘you did well.’ What part specifically? The whole entire thing? Really? I had a good morning today as my head of school came in and gave me direct feedback with concrete examples. It was positive, but specific. Now I know and can think to myself, “That part was good, so Implement it next year. Ask yourself is there a way to make it better?”

I’m excited as our new school at more effective ways to evaluate our teachers. I’m hoping with the intent of developing growth mindsets. Perhaps if we look at all the data about the kinds of assessments we collect from children, the same kinds could apply to teachers.

There are so many ways to collect evidence that you’re reaching your goals. Student work, portfolios, student surveys, individual assessments, their daily writing, observation, questioning., etc. Wouldn’t it be nice to get past the old teacher observation evaluation model and incorporate elements of the assessments we place on kids. Observation and feedback should just be a piece of the pie.

The Man Who Walked Between Two Towers

A lot of people have written and reflected upon the tragic day that occurred 10 years ago. It affected everyone in some way, and while have have memories good and bad seered into my memory of what happend, I thought instead I’d share a resource for children that I like to use.

It’sa Caldecott winning picture book called The Man Who Walked Between The Towers by Mordecai Gerstein. It’s a gorgeously illustrated book and tells of a joyous ture story of a man who walked on a tightrope between the towers just shortly before they were completed.

It’s a great story as it is unrelated to the events other than the words on the penultimate page, “Now the towers are gone.” The children I taught that day in ’01 are now seniors in high school, and the children I teach today were born post 9/11. Yet, the questions from the children remain the same and unanswered. I just hope they keep asking questions. Inquiry  is just the beginning.

A month prior to the horrific event, I visited NYC for the first time, and as a tourist, it was on my agenda. Below is my fond memory of the WTC. Below that is a youtube video that was made of the book. Enjoy.

What Can a Book Do?

It’s back-to-school time, and it’s always exciting and busy. I love this time of year, and this week has been a great one. We started our all-faculty gatherings this week. Though there’s a lot of work to do, it’s always nice to catch up with colleagues you haven’t seen over the summer and welcome new teachers, getting to know them a little better. It was also a great week as this blog was mentioned on cnn.com. I had never really been interviewed by the media before, so I wasn’t sure how I’d come across. It was a good experience, and I learned a lot. I was thankful for the first aid training we were required to take. I just hope I never have to use CPR on a child. There were numerous good moments this week, but I never expected it to end this way:

From Anita Silvey's Children's Book-a-Day Almanac

In 2004, one of my students announced that they would not be returning to our school. His family would be moving to Italy. As a farewell gift, I gave him the book Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett, a children’s mystery that I thought he’d enjoy.

Almost 7 years later, while visiting Seattle, they paid a visit to the school today and presented me with a different book with the same title. It was a photo book of my former student and his younger brother in front of every Vermeer painting. Inspired by the book and taking advantage of living in Europe, they planned many of their vacations around where these paintings were kept and set on a quest to see all 35 undisputed paintings (the 36th is stolen).

It’s always great when former students visit and I get to find out what they’ve been up to. It’s also rather incredible to know a children’s book can inspire such an adventure. Looking through the photo book this evening and seeing a third grader grow into a tenth grader standing next to all those paintings was truly a special way to end the week.

 

5 Things I Did for PD this Summer

An indepentdent school IT director from CT,  Lorri Caroll is another educator who blogs. I also found her through twitter as I continue to try to grow my professional learning network. I’d recommended reading her blog from time to time as she has some amazing insights. She also runs the weekly #isedchat on twitter every Thursday 6pm on twitter. Her recent blog post titld 5 Awesome things I did for PD this Summer inspired me to do the same.

If you want kids to be life-long learners, I believe you have to model it yourself. Summer is a great time for relaxation, but I also managed to find some good PD in that time.

1. Taught summer school. I’ve read about problem/project based learning, 90 minute class periods, multi-aged classes and such, but never tried it. So I took a three week teaching gig with the Summe Institute for the Gifted and boy, did I learn a lot. Some of which I’m going to try and incorporate in my classroom this school year.

2. Attended the ISTE conference. I was blown away by the shear size of it, let a lone the incredible amount of learning that took place.

3. Participated in our school’s Summer Plannng Institute. It was incredible. Change is hard, but I believe our school, through this institute hit critical mass interms of developing a culture of professional learners who share, are clear, trust one another, and want to get better all the time. I love it!

4. Read A New Culture of Learning which is one I highly recommend (it reframes how one might look at things). Short easy read, but powerful insights. Partook in the twitter book club for this book, and looking forward to a follow up webinar by the author.

5. Learning how to use social media responsibly. The riots in London last week were sobering, but a good reminder about how we need to teach responsible use to our children. How can we do this if we don’t engage in social media, blogging, etc. ourselves. A silly post I made had almost 15,000 hits. Then I got a call from cnn.com for an interview. I said yes, because even if they misquoted me to sound ridiculous. I would have learned something. I think I played it too safe. They did not use any of our conversation. Still a good learning experience.

But wait… there’s more. Maybe another time.

Reading Fiction

The final Harry Potter movie in the franchise will open in less than two weeks. I remember taking my class over a decade ago to see Ms. Rowling at the Vancouver International Writers’ Festival. The festival is a great event in Vancouver that promotes reading and always has events for school children. In previous years we saw John Scieszka and other kid-lit authors in an intimate setting on Granville Island. In Vancouver, to read and talk about her fourth book, The Goblet of Fire, they needed to host the event the Pacific Colleseum (at the time, the arena for the local NHL ice hockey team) for Ms Rowling. The event was like a rock concert. Kids screaming at the top of their lungs. How great though to have children that psyched about a book.

Like many of my students, I devoured the Harry Potter books, but it’s been a long time since I last read one. Yesterday, when I saw a trailer for the film, I couldn’t remember from the clips what happened. Aside from kid-lit, I used to read a lot of fiction each year: Jonathan Franzen’s Corrections, Ian McEwan’s Attonement, Rohintin Mistry’s A Fine Balance, Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient, Yann Martel’s The Life of Pi, Margaret Attwood’s Blind Assassin, Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex and so on.

A couple of years ago, though, I started reading more non-fiction and got hooked on it. I continue to do so with little time to fit in any fiction. I was simply fascinated by Dweck, Pink, Chip and Dan Heath, and Seth Godin, just to name a few. I picked up the graphic novel Logicomix thinking it was fiction. It was, sort of. It turned out to be, in some ways, a biography of Betrand Russell.

This past year, I think I have read only 4 pieces of fiction: American Born Chinese, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, The Help, and The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. The first two were more middle school reads that piqued my curiosity and the last two based on recommendations for airplane reading. I didn’t realize it at the time, but looking back at all four books, they all deal with race. Reading fiction, if written well, allows the reader to empathize with characters and sometimes pretend to walk a mile in their shoes. It’s not exactly the same thing, but it gives you a sense of what that mile might be like. Having just read The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, which is set in Seattle and includes a sad piece of American History where the country interred the Japanese, it struck me that 1942 was not that long ago. Many still live in this area and have vivid memories of that time. Thanks to all who recommended it. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It also reminded me that I need to read more fiction. Any recommendations?

Another 8 Things Learned at ISTE

The final day of ISTE came fast and furious. To squeeze in more sessions, the breaks were shorter and there was no shortage of information overload. The ending keynote was given by the principal of the Philadelphia Science Leadership Academy (a public school working in partnership with the Franklin Institute), Chris Lehmann. Before he was introduced on stage, we were given three bits of advice: 1) Get it out of your brain (write about it, blog or old-style journaling), but organize and put it all somewhere; 2) Don’t wait to get started (try some of those new tools, reflect on how you’d use it with your class/school, etc.); 3) Share! I plan to do more sharing, but for now, here are 8 things I learned today.

8) I’d love to come back to ISTE and have others from my school to share the experience. It’s in San Diego next year, which might make this more feasible. Perhaps partnerships with nearby public schools.

7) We should take no greater pleasure than seeing our students eclipse us. (Paraphrased from Lehmann’s keynote.

6) The great lie of education is to tell kids, “You might need it some day.” Make it relevant. If they need to know it now, they will be motivated to do it now.

5) I understand resources cost money, but some companies are selling devices that no smart teacher would use if they knew the much much cheaper alternatives out there. There are document cameras at our school that cost over $600 (I won’t say who this vendor was). I found one for $75 from the company iPevo. Apart from no light source it’s a great simple to use document camera. The company had a booth and the people there were extremely helpful. When I asked about light source when lights are off, they offered a couple of solutions – one) a cheap desk lamp; 2) a small flashlight and some zip ties; 3) the exposure mode in the software (something new I learned). They were more about, “How can this tool help your kids,” and less about “buy this version now. It’s improved.” I know, different sales tactics, but if you start your pitch with my students, I will be more inclined to take the time to listen.

image from ipevo site

4) Jobs that are facilitated by tech are growing. Design, architecture, engineering, science, and in fact most jobs of the future will depend on the creative class (current trends, Daniel Pink, Richard Florida). Technology facilitates creativity. Those that can be replaced by tech will and should be (i.e. online math tutors in India for fractions of the cost). You cannot compete with price. This includes teachers who don’t see themselves as creative and aren’t learning when to use tech to facilitate teaching/learning. A teacher needs to matter to a student. If you look at Dale’s Learning Cone from 1968 or Bloom’s Taxonomy (1956), they still hold true for how we learn and how important it is to focus as in the case of Dale’s Cone (the bottom) and in the case of Bloom’s Taxonomy (the top). With Bloom’s you cannot do the top if you don’t have the skills below it.

Bloom's Taxonomy

Dale's Learning ConeModified Blooms Taxonmy

3) A cartoon I saw that I loved had a boss yelling at an employee, “Get back to the cubical and start thinking outside the box!”

2) More early literacy resources at Readilicious (again, thanks to all presenters for posting their links, resources, etc.)

1) Don’t give your kids the answers. Let them grapple with it, predict, apply, be resourceful. A good metaphor was the horror movie: If there is a real intense scene and someone tells you, “don’t worry, the cops will arrive just in the nick of time,” that experience is lost. That is the same for kids’ learning. If you TELL them rather than let them DISCOVER it, you have just spoiled their learning experience/opportunity.

What an incredible 3.5 days! I have never before been this overloaded with information. Still the bottom line is this: No matter how much tech is out there. No matter how extensive your PLN is, you have to remember it’s all about relationships. The response you received from a question you tweeted didn’t come from a google algorithm. It came from an actual person. What a great experience to have met some of the actual people in my extended PLN. It’d be great to find educators public and independent elementary teachers who tweet locally. I’ll leave you with this: I am smart. My colleagues, students, parents of students, are collectively much smarter. My PLN is brilliant!

I will continue to share bits and pieces review the resources I’ve learned about and talk about a great book I’m almost through called The New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the  Imagination for a World in Constant Change  by John Seely Brown. The independent school group at ISTE has chosen this book as a summer book club book, and they’ve got the author to agree to a web chat sometime between mid-August and early September depending on the author’s schedule. I’m more than half-way through. It’s quick easy and thought provoking. If you’re a twitter user, Vinnie Vrotney will be hosting an #isedchat on July 21st. More details to follow.

If you’re interested on Chris Lehmann’s talk, you can get an idea of his philosophy through his TEDxPhilly talk.

8 Things I Learned Today

One of the sessions at ISTE that I attended was called Google to the Max: The Power User’s Guide by Dr. Howie Di Blasi. The title was not an understatement. After a nice introduction where he talked about 8 things he learned today, the speaker powered through example after example of incredible ways to utilize the free tools available through google that kids and teachers can use. One simply has to be creative. Thank goodness those resources and examples will be posted tomorrow, so I could sit back an actually learn a few things. Here are 8 of the many things I learned today.

8 ) There are so many resources out there that it’s extremely hard to sift through them all. Thank goodness others are sharing the wealth. An example, would be from a session I attended today called Resources for Emergent Literacy Teachers by Boni Hamilton. Here is her resource page on early literacy alone. Of these resources, I really liked the reading assessment database which gathers all available reading assessments for preK to 3rd grade, groups them into either criterion referenced or norm referenced assessments, tells you how much they cost, and what these assessments do and do not test. For example, you can see on the chart that the DIBELS assessment, one of the tools we use at our school, is a free resource that assesses reading comprehension (through retells), decoding, cipher knowledge, phoneme awareness, and letter knowledge (depending on the grade). What it doesn’t assess is language comprehension, background knowledge, linguistic knowledge, phonology, syntax, semantics, lexical knowledge, alphabetic principle, and concepts about print.  Depending on the age of your kids, you would look to other assessments then, to glean more information about the other areas or reading.

7) Collaborative writing is interesting, and I participated in a demonstration this morning using the tool MixedInk. This would have a lot of potential for teachers who want to create a shared document on school policies, beliefs about education philosophies, or other subject areas. Having said that, I tried a shared google doc with our faculty this year, but did not get any participation. I also think peer editing works for older kids and that younger kids aren’t ready to ‘critique’ their peers’ work without it becoming a popularity contest. Some teachers say they assign code names to their students, so only the teacher knows, but in the end many shared theirs with each other. I would also find it difficult to have 8 year olds deciding which of the different sources is best. The fact that this tool allows users to rate others worries me too.

6) I’ve never seen so many ed Tech vendors gathered in one space. You can tell who the big players are as their ‘booths’ look like full-blown stores. What’s even better is that many have their own sessions – and they’re good. Here’s an example. What I liked was that you obtained their schedule by snapping a QR code with your smart phone. No paper. It’s a tech conference. I do not want fliers, pamphlets, or google logo beach balls. As it is, the conference program is over 200 pages. I will however claim an ipad if my name is drawn – so far, no luck.

5) Tech Ed. does not belong to the young teachers. It belongs to those motivated to learn. I would say most here are over 40. Neither age nor gender seemed to play a factor in tech ed. Except that during the purely elementary school sessions I attended – males are still grossly underrepresented. Using tech in education is a mindset.

4) I love infographics. I attended a great session with Kathy Schrock. Again…resource/info overload. Thank goodness for a site she put together for this presentation with all the links.

3) Administrators need to play, explore, use technology to teach (hold meetings, reflect, share resources, engage in PD, blog, etc.) as well as teachers and students to really make change happen as better decisions on the type and implementation of tech is more likely to happen. This message was repeated by several presenters.

2) Tech seems designed to bring out the problem solvers in us. Let it bring out the problem solvers in kids. Kids in second grade or younger should work in pairs when on a computer. It’s not simply the tech that’s helping them learn different literacies, but the conversation they’re having with each other is even more important for development.

1) People from Philly are direct. Walking through the massive maze-like conference an attendee asked one of the security workers for directions. After giving him directions, the attendee started walking the wrong way. The security agent rolled her eyes, yelled at the gentleman and said, “Sir, did you hear anything I said? It’s that way.” As he reversed direction, she threw her arms up in the air and in a voice loud enough for all to hear she continued, “That’s a man for you!” I felt for the poor guy, but was so glad it wasn’t me.

Rubik's Cube solver made of Lego - I really liked this.

Learning to Read and Reading to Learn: Where does One End and the other Begin? #isedchat

Do you ever get something completely different out of a book after multiple readings?

There was a conversation at our school recently about “reading to learn” and “learning to read.” When does that tipping point happen? Or does it? After thinking about it a bit, I realized, at least for me, both those things are life long endeavors.

Just a couple of summers ago when I took several Spanish courses (something completely new to me), I was asked to read out loud in front of the class. I was so concerned with pronunciation – the phonics and fluency of the language, that there was no room in my brain to also comprehend what I was reading. At that moment, it was easy to empathize with some of my struggling second grade readers.

I just finished reading aloud The Secret Garden to my class (a book I hadn’t read in a few years), but having read Carol Dweck’s book Mindset and hearing her speak about it a couple of years ago,  one of the that story’s themes – growth –  took on new meaning. I was also moved because of seeing a colleague recently step out of his wheelchair as did a character in The Secret Garden. Even in another book I read every year to my class, The Tale of Despereaux, I found more light and more dark than I had in the past. It’s pretty clear that the author of Despereaux, Kate diCamillo did not name one of the characters Chiaroscuro arbitrarily.

And when I read new research in education and come across new terms and phrases, or read statistics with more scrutiny, I am continuing to ‘learn to read’ as I ‘read to learn.’

So to answer my my own question – at least for me, they are both lifelong pursuits. Now the question remains, how do we teach both these things at every level of school while respecting and validating everyone’s perspective? Reading is so much more than a skill.

The Case for Picture Books

A few weeks ago, I read the book The Case for Books by Book Historian, and head of the Harvard University Library, Robert Darnton. It was a rather heavy collection of essays, but they made a very good case for both the printed book and e-book to coexist. Darnton’s book had a lot to do with Google’s Book Project, and why Google – though their motto says, “Don’t be evil” – may actually be doing evil. As a librarian, he had no objections to sharing and openly lending resources. What he objected to was the potential for a company with a monopoly to profit off these resources to satisfy their shareholders.

The internet has certainly disrupted many industries such as the newspapers (we lost one of our major ones here in Seattle last year), the music industry, and the traditional encyclopedia. Still, the book, according to Darnton, has staying power.

My personal experience is that beautifully illustrated children’s books cannot be replaced by a glossy iPad or Kindle. Maybe I’m projecting, but I think kids need the tactile feel of the page in their hands. They physical motion of turning the pages, scanning the illustrations before reading the text don’t seem to work with e-readers. At least I don’t see the appeal.

For adult books, however, I have found that my reading habits have increased with an e-reader. The ease of downloading a book without leaving your home is easy. I worried, at first about the inability to write in the margins or leave sticky notes on pages, but the annotation tools are quite easy to use. What about borrowing e-books?

I’m a heavy public library user both personally and for books to complement my classroom library. I tried borrowing ebooks before I had an e-reader and reading for long periods of time on a computer screen is definitely not ideal. Now, however, there’s an app/service called overdrive that works with the Seattle Public Library which I tried. The list is rather limited, but there are some good ones available: Daniel Pink’s Drive, the Heath Brother’s Switch, and Gladwell’s Blink. I searched for books on education and only a handful of decent titles came up. Unlike the library’s traditional books, when an e-book is unavailable, they don’t tell you how many holds there are ahead of you. There are also several audiobooks available through this service that you can directly download to your mobile device. After 21 days, it will magically expire. Some titles, like David Brooks’ new book were not available, so I just went to the Kindle store and bought it. As much as I want to support my local bookstore, it was too easy to purchase from the comfort of home.

The public library’s juvenile fiction section is ok. I assume they’re building their collection. There were a few popular titles of children’s book series like Percy Jackson, Artemis Fowl, or Katie Kazoo. But very few classics were available. Here were some I found: The Phantom Tollbooth, Boxcar Children, Encyclopedia Brown, and a few Magic Treehouse books. This year and last year’s Newberry winners were available, but Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book or Louis Sachar’s Holes, weren’t, nor were any Lowis Lowry books available to be borrowed in this format.

As for picture books, I’m guessing the public library has the same feeling I do about the tactile nature and visual quality of a great picture book. Either they’re not spending any money on them, or they don’t exist as e-books. I would say there’s definitely a case for picture books.

On a somewhat related note, the WSJ reported that Random House was changing it’s pricing format for ebooks purchased from libraries to lend out. I’m not sure how I feel about this.

I hope both formats continue to exist, but it’s an interesting time in the book publishing industry. Nonetheless, despite budget cuts, public libraries continue to innovate and aim to be centers of learning for all. Our schools need to be too.

Happy President’s Day Y’all

Our school’s mission includes creating confident, courageous, and curious learners and includes the values of respect, responsibility, and resourcefulness. Using the biography of President John F. Kennedy is a great way for kids to try and find these traits in others.

I love David Adler’s biographies for kids, and leading up to President’s Day, we read his biography on JFK. We discussed if he would meet our school’s mission and values, giving examples. Then the children go on to choose their own biographies searching for those same traits. I also add the task of asking them how their famous person changed the world in a positive way.

It’s my first time in Dallas, and being Presidents’ Day, it made perfect sense to visit the Sixth Floor Museum which highlights JFK’s life and sadly, his assassination. While he was president back in the sixties, it’s amazing how much the current state of the country seems to parallel that era: extreme polarization in politics, people demanding justice and equal rights, a president committed to improving education, and the country involved in war. We have come a long way since then, but things remain unfinished.

It’s Awards Season

The American Library Association announced this year’s winners for the Caldecott (illustrator) and Newbery (author) awards for children’s literature. The book A Sick Day for Amos McGee which I posted about last week, won the Caldecott. Sometimes books can be simple and sweet without the harsher realities of the world and offer children a nice escape into a world where everyone is kind to one another. If you follow this blog, you know I really enjoyed it, but I thought David Weisner’s Art and Max was a little better. Of course, Weisner has already won 3 Caldecott Medals, so maybe they decided to skip him this year. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see him again soon. What was a pleasant surprise was the Laura Ingalls Wilder award. The Wilder Award honors an author or illustrator whose books, published in the United States, have made, over a period of years, a substantial and lasting contribution to literature for children, and this year’s winner was Tomie dePaola; it’s a fine coincidence that second grade is currently involved in a dePaola author study. It’s often quite exciting to observe children when they have a close connection to current events. Below are a few of dePaola’s better known titles. Another author/illustrator known for simple and sweet. I haven’t read this year’s Newbery winner Moon Over Manifest, but it sounds good, and perhaps I should grab a copy. Hopefully it’s as good as the last two winners.

 

Reading Fluency – It Matters

What is fluency? Is it simply reading quickly and accurately, or does a fluent reader also need to read with expression as well as comprehend what is read? Interestingly enough, a more recent definition (Good and Kaminski, 2002) has left out both expression AND comprehension! You know a book is a good book when it makes you think about how you teach and why you do what you do. In Richard L. Alliongton’s book What Really Matters in Fluency: Research-Based Practices Across the Curriculum, he addresses those same questions I posed, and yes, fluency should include expression and comprehension.

One of the conclusions is that reading volume (the amount read) has a huge impact on reading success. The more one reads, the more fluent one becomes. A fluent reader also knows where to place stresses or inflections on words. An example he uses that I like is if you ask someone a question like, “Who threw the ball over the fence?” A normal response would be:

JOHN threw the ball over the fence.

The stress placed on the first word. But if we asked the question, “How did the ball get over the fence?” a typical response would be:

John THREW the ball over the fence.

The stress now is placed on the second word.

A fluent reader would know this and place the stress on the correct word whether speaking or reading. What the author worries about is that many teachers are in fact not teaching fluency skills. The kind of expression needed in order to convey meaning. Like the way we talk.

• One of the most important strategies for reading fluency is reading aloud to children so that you model good fluency. Just imagine those who enter Kindergarden and have been read to every night vs. those who have not had that same opportunity. The gap between the amount of words, phrases, sentences heard (even if the child cannot really read by then) is in the millions.
• Another strategy is making sure kids read appropriate texts. They need texts where they feel successful in order to foster fluency development.
• Accuracy is also very important. Children need to develop “at-a-glance” recognition, also called automaticity with many of the words they read. Kids who have trouble reading often do so with the little words both in meaning and their orthographic similarities (of, off, if; where, were, there). When was the last time you asked a child to define the word “of”?
• As mentioned, reading volume. The more they read or are read to, the better. One suggestion in getting struggling readers to read more, is by pairing them with reading to younger developing readers.
• Repeated readings is also a strategy that works, but there are caveats, one being that it limits the opportunities of the child from experiencing unique texts.
• Do not interrupt a reader when he/she is stuck on a word. One should pause, then provide a prompt if needed, and then praise the effort. Too often teachers interrupt the struggling reader too soon. In second grade, we teach our students to do this as well when partner reading.
• Have students engage in Free Voluntary Reading or other sustained silent reading times.
• Be careful of basal readers or anthologies – often the range in reading difficulties is so great. The author found a third grade anthology with texts ranging from 2nd grade reading levels to those of a 6th grade text. A teacher should not assume that the publishers have done their job in vetting the stories for reading levels.

Finally, what I found most interesting in this book is the author’s disdain for the assessment tool called DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills). Each subtests calls itself a fluency test, but all it is measuring is the rate and accuracy of reading with no regard to comprehension or prosody. Often children read for speed, score well, but don’t comprehend a thing they have read and are given texts that are inappropriately too hard for them. Others may fall in the “at risk” factor based on this assessment because they are reading slowly and carefully, but they read with more expression and understand what they have read. Unfortunately many of these students across the country are also given the wrong texts. Why do I find this interesting? This author devoted a whole chapter to assessing fluency, half of that chapter, he spent dismissing the reliability of DIBELS as an assessment of fluency. Our school uses it as one measure. It’s validating, though, that we take a lot of other things into account, many of which are mentioned in this book and use multiple assessment strategies as well, but if DIBELS is really all that unreliable, should we be using it at all?

In the end, I couldn’t agree with the author more, that both reading aloud to students and reading volume is important. It goes with the persistent practice theories mentioned in The Talent Code and other similar books. Kids need opportunities to read, at school, at home, wherever. My only complaint of this book is the $37 price tag for a 138 page paperback. Thank goodness it was left in the teachers lounge on Friday to be passed on, where it will return tomorrow for someone else to read. Thought provoking and written in a style that is easy for teachers to read, the book also offers many strategies for fostering fluent readers.

 

 

Integrating Math and Literature

This month’s Teacher Children Mathematics journal had a great lesson involving the Caldecott winning picture book, Jumanji. Those familiar with the title know that it’s about a pair of children who find a board game and begin playing it by rolling the dice. Things get out of hand and the only way to end the game is by rolling a 12. Then (to a lot of groans), I slammed the book shut and asked the children that we were going to do some math and I would read the end aftewards. I began by asking them  how likely they thought the chance would be that a 12 would be rolled. There was a large range of answers. I then gave each child a pair of dice and asked them to roll it ten times and to record their answers. Finally, we took all their data and filled in a graph on the board. It looked like a nice rolling hill. I then asked the children why they thought this pattern emerged and eventually they started to say that the were more combinations of numbers to add to make 7 whereas there was only one way to get 12. We then read the end of the book and it was a great way for children to experience the concept of probability and how it might affect their lives. Would it be better to build houses on your strip of Monopoly when someone was 1 place away or 6 places away? Why?

Unfortunately, many textbooks are so linear, teaching one concept at a time, they don’t leave room for integration of other math concepts or even literature connections for fun, engaging, lessons like these that ask kids to discover the why behind the math. Many textbook series have ‘literature’ connections by producing their own children’s books. None to my knowledge have measured up to Chris Van Allsburg’s Jumanji – a true classic.

 

I ♥ Picture Books

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have to add this book to my top 10 of 2010 list. I don’t know which book I’d bump out, but this one would definitely make my top 10 … A Sick Day for Amos McGee (Stead/Stead). Simple and sweet with illustrations that evoke picture books of the past. I highly recommend this book to anyone who’s interested in creating caring classroom climates (I apologize for that alliteration. It was completely accidental).

Graphic Novels: Sophisticated Enough for Adults

At the advice of a colleague, I took some time to read some fiction, only to find out that the first book I picked turned out to be a biography. Nonetheless, I was engrossed in the graphic novel called Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth. For all those who look down at writing that isn’t in the traditional western canon of literature, they are certainly missing out on some complex, innovative, and satisfying story telling. It turns out to be about math, logic, and insanity told from the perspective of famous mathematician/logician Bertrand Russell. Unbeknownst to me, there is even a bit of educational philosophy along with traditional Greek math and philosophy as well. So much for non-educational reading. It’s been on my list for a year and I finally got to it. Who knew?

I’m guessing that those who dismiss graphic novels as literature have yet to read a good one cover to cover. Earlier this year, from a recommendation of a middle school English teacher, I read a graphic novel called American Born Chinese. Not only is it engaging, it deals with serious topics such as cultural biases, racism, self-loathing. It has a very literary quality to its structure, but overall, is an excellent work, was glad it was recommended to me, and am also glad to see him engaging his students with that book. It also happens to be the 2007 Printz Award Winner (The Caldecott/Newberry for Young Adults).

I did finally manage to relax and read some fiction though, yet it’s amazing how reading fiction can spur one to want to learn more about the factual events about the time and place where the story is set.

I’ve found the graphic novels for younger students (Diary of a Wimpy Kid, or The Adventures of Ook and Gluk, for example) have a high engagement quality, are great for reluctant readers, but are still lacking in the sophisticated story telling. I have two new goals. 1) To find a graphic novel of literary quality for second graders, and 2) To ensure that the literature I give my students to read engages them in a way beyond the text. There is definitely a place for graphic novels in schools.

Happy 2011!

 

Forced

One of my goals this year is learn more about gardening. My kids have a garden journal and I’ve decided to blog every time they make an entry. Descpite 14 degree weather, the green fertilizer we planted continues to grow. I learned that because it snowed first, the snow acted as an insulator and therefore there was no frost.

In the classroom, we decided to force bulbs. After following a sequence of instructions, I asked the kids, “Where’s the math?” and here are some of the responses I got:

“You had to measure out 1/2 a cup of water and 1/2 a cup of sand, so there was measurement and fractions.”

“You can measure the height as it grows and graph it. I’d use cm because that’s what scientists use, but I suppose you could use inches too.”

“We can estimate how many days until the first bloom.”

“We can find the difference in height between two different groups.”

The list continued.

This might not be math the way text books teach it (which tend to be linearly), but it certainly makes math meaningful to children because it’s tangible and kids can relate to it.

I haven’t told the kids yet, but there’s a literature tie-in too. Later in the year, we do a unit on Greek myths and they will be able to relate to the story of Echo and Narcissus.

Darkness and Light in Children’s Literature

“Reader, you must know that an interesting fate (sometimes involving rats, sometimes not) awaits almost everyone, mouse or man, who does not conform.”

That line is from one of my favorite books, The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, A Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread by Kate Di Camillo. It may be my all time favorite, for each time I read it, it gets better. I’m almost done reading it aloud to my class and have treasured every moment so far. It is undoubtedly a rich piece of literature. A tapestry of beautiful language, structure, and themes.

My favorite are the characters though. Deep and not without flaws. It could have been a simple good vs. evil / mice vs. rats story, but like humans the characters are much more complex. Here’s another quote:

“There are those hearts, reader, that never mend again once they are broken. Or if they do mend, they heal themselves in a crooked and lopsided way, as if sewn together by a careless craftsman.”

That quote alone could launch a great social/emotional learning lesson.

Despereaux has some very dark moments, but unlike Harry Potter, which I saw this past weekend and thoroughly enjoyed, the darkness of Despereaux is easier to handle with children because its characters include mice and rats. While still frightening, it doesn’t have the intensity that the later Potter books contain. And in a movie, that intensity is amplified, but the sound, special effects, and cinematography. In a book, the intensity is created by the author, but the reader or listener can make many more choices as to how they choose to view those things.

Despereaux won the Newberry Award in 2004 and no book has grabbed me that same way until the last two winners. 2010’s When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead and Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book. Unfortunately, both unsuitable for 2nd graders. They turned Despereaux into a cartoon in ’08 and, in my humble opinion, butchered it. Stick to the book.

Like the name of one of its characters, Chiaroscuro, The Tale of Despereaux is full of darkness and light, and if not my very favorite, certainly in my top ten. Children learn so much about people not being good or bad, but sophisticated and complex. They learn that sometimes its the choices that characters make, not their souls that have added to their darkness or light. With this book, children are able to develop empathy, even for the book’s villain – and that takes a good story teller.

Picture Books Languish as Parents Push

Picture Books Languish as Parents Push ‘Big-Kid Books’ – NYTimes.com.

Being in Portland, I had to stop into Powel’s Book Store. A local institution and bought a picture book. Then I saw this article and it made me very sad. While I’m a huge advocate of limited use of technology in the classroom, a picture book can never be replaced by an ipad. It may be, but it won’t be the same. That’s what I anticipated the article to be about, but the real reason made me even sadder. Parents are pushing picture books to even four year olds and trying to abandon picture books.  This, mostly because of the pressure parents feel due to test scores.

I believe that picture books are great even for middle-schoolers. I have no problems with capable readers reading big thick chapter books, but at the expense of abandoning picture books is too high a price.

Ironically, the book I bought: Lane Smith’s – It’s A Book – Thanks SJ for he recommendation.

Top 20 Reasons for iPhones in the Classrooms

Late last week even after the iphone 4 antenna fiasco, Apple posted an incredible quarter. They also mentioned that for some reason they couldn’t get the white plastic right until the end of the year. I was waiting for that one, but decided that was too long to wait and got myself the new one. What to do with my old one, I thought. It’s headed to my classroom. Here are my top 20 reasons for having iphones in the classroom. If you have more, I’m all ears!

1. It’s an ipod after all – kids can listen to audio books (formerly called books on tape) – and it can play music
2. It’s an e-reader – even though I can’t read for too long on those small screens, kids can.
3. It’s a recorder – kids can record themselves reading
4. It’s a camera – kids love taking pictures and from their perspective, there are always interesting shots. Unfortunately my phone is 2 versions old and doesn’t do video (but I hear there may be a way to do this)
5. It’s a drawing pad – just think, no messy fingers full of paint, no wasted paper, and a gallery of kid art
6. It’s a calculator – you can even geek out and get one in reverse Polish notation
7. It’s a clock – and a timer, stop watch, alarm – you can even get a binary clock.
8. It’s a dictionary
9. It’s wikipedia
10. Kids can watch BBC or PBS clips on youtube (National Geographic, Nasa, and Discovery have great apps too)
11. It’s a web browser
12. That means it’s also a writing tool (zoho.com is a good example – a mobile google docs is coming soon)
13. It can still be used as a phone without a plan over wifi (skype)
14. A lot of educational games – Scrabble, chess, sudoku, tangrams, pentominos, (and a lot of games that aren’t) – there are also flashcard games, memory games, strategy games, puzzles, mad libs, etc.
15. It can be used as an FTP server (if you don’t know what this means, ignore and read the next one)
16. It can be used as a remote for your slide shows, used as a mouse, even be a remote desktop for your pc!
17. It can be a translator or converter (imperial to metric, dollars to euros)
18. Kids can use it to roll dice or flip a coin
19. It’s great for mapping – google earth is amazing
20. It can be used as a flashlight/level/ruler (you get the idea)
21. (bonus) – it’s a musical instrument too.

If anyone reading this has an old iphone 3g or 3gs sitting around in a drawer somewhere, I am accepting donations for my classroom. I’ll also be accepting any old Kindles that would otherwise be unused.

Interesting story here – don’t know how legit it is, but a $35 tablet computer? I’ll believe it when I see it.

Doodling Daydreamers

If you’ve ever been at a meeting and, at the end of it, what you thought were notes turns out to be an elaborate doodle? You’re not alone, and according to some recent studies there may be some important benefits. Thanks to a former student’s parent for passing this piece on to me.

John Tierney wrote a column in the New York Times titled: Discovering the Virtues of a Wandering Mind.

“At long last, the doodling daydreamer is getting some respect.

In the past, daydreaming was often considered a failure of mental discipline, or worse. Freud labeled it infantile and neurotic. Psychology textbooks warned it could lead to psychosis. Neuroscientists complained that the rogue bursts of activity on brain scans kept interfering with their studies of more important mental functions.

But now that researchers have been analyzing those stray thoughts, they’ve found daydreaming to be remarkably common — and often quite useful. A wandering mind can protect you from immediate perils and keep you on course toward long-term goals. Sometimes daydreaming is counterproductive, but sometimes it fosters creativity and helps you solve problems….”  Click here to read the rest of his column.

Why We Need the Humanities

There is a quote that educators often like to use: “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” This fire, drive, way of thinking, passion, or whatever you want to call it (Shaggy Monster) is what sets people apart. One of my favorite columnists, David Brooks, wrote a great piece about that today:

History for Dollars

When the going gets tough, the tough take accounting. When the job market worsens, many students figure they can’t indulge in an English or a history major. They have to study something that will lead directly to a job.

So it is almost inevitable that over the next few years, as labor markets struggle, the humanities will continue their long slide. There already has been a nearly 50 percent drop in the portion of liberal arts majors over the past generation, and that trend is bound to accelerate. Once the stars of university life, humanities now play bit roles when prospective students take their college tours. The labs are more glamorous than the libraries.

To read the rest of David Brooks’ column, click here.

It Just Is

Garrison Keillor wrote a nice little op-ed about the coming end of the publishing era. It’s bittersweet and will happen before we know it. I have a feeling that children’s books will be the last to go. First to go for kids will be reference materials: dictionaries, atlases, thesauri, etc. Print encyclopedias have already been replaced. Is this good? Bad? I don’t know, but I heard someone using the simple term, “It just is!”

I love watching my students struggle through the 500 page children’s dictionary at the beginning of the school year, honing their alphabetization skills, and having to learn how to use key words. At this time of year, many can flip through with greater ease and find a word in a fraction of the time it use to take them. They worked hard to build this skill. Of course, now they can also type the first two or three letters on an electronic dictionary (or google) and autofill will take care of the rest. In an even shorter time, they find what they were searching for. Some will claim technology is more efficient and therefore better. Other’s will lament the loss of those dictionary skills. Is it good? Is it bad? Perhaps it just is.”