A New Kind of Book Banning

Attention book lovers! Please read this article! Here's the main gist of it:

It’s hard to believe, but true: under a law Congress passed last year aimed at regulating hazards in children’s products, the federal government has now advised that children’s books published before 1985 should not be considered safe and may in many cases be unlawful to sell or distribute. Merchants, thrift stores, and booksellers may be at risk if they sell older volumes, or even give them away, without first subjecting them to testing—at prohibitive expense. Many used-book sellers, consignment stores, Goodwill outlets, and the like have accordingly begun to refuse new donations of pre-1985 volumes, yank existing ones off their shelves, and in some cases discard them en masse.

I have been hearing whispers going around about these kinds of bans on children's items, and it has been worrying me, because I am a thrifty mama who loves shopping consignment sales and thrift stores for baby clothes and toys. It didn't even occur to me that children's books would fall under this ban as well!! 

This is a tragedy! Some of us have started discussing it on Twitter. We're asking, "What can we do?" 

Reading AND Writing

Photo by milena mihaylova

We all know how important it is to read to children. But what should we be doing for the children in our lives when it comes to encouraging writing? Isn't writing also an important part of literacy?

The Duluth News Tribune recently featured an article on this very subject. (I wanted to put a link to the article in here, but it looks like they are now requiring a password and such to access it.) A reader wrote into an advice column of the paper's, asking what they could do to encourage their 4-year to be practicing writing. I really loved the answer that was given. Judy Swedberg, a Head Start teacher for ISD 709 at Lincoln Park Elementary, responded by encouraging the reader to give their child "natural" writing experiences, explaining that, "kids learn best when they are doing something that is meaningful to them - and fun." How true, not just for writing, but for all kinds of learning!

Swedberg also explained that scribbling is where writing begins. The best thing we can do as parents (and as teachers, educators, or anybody who works with children) is provide our children with opportunities, and supplies, to practice writing/scribbling!

Photo by freeparking

Some of Swedberg's suggestions for encouraging writing included...

• Give them a pad and paper to make their own lists.

• Help them write letters to friends and family.

• Help them make signs to hang around the house ("Keep Out!").

• Make a little office space for them to do writing. Include paper and envelopes from junk mail offers, a play phone, pads of paper and pens/pencils, cheap reading glasses with the lenses popped out (wouldn't this make for the perfect photo-op!), etc.

• Make a book together.

• Play school, but let the child be the teacher and write on the chalk board, or dry erase board.

• Play with shaving cream on the table or counter, and let them write letter in the shaving cream.
  

Those are some of the ideas Swedberg gave. What ideas do you have for encouraging little ones to practice writing?

Pre-Reading Skills Parents Can Teach From Birth

There are a set of basic pre-reading skills that are necessary for reading success, and parents can begin teaching these skills at birth. I recently read an article from the Calgary Herald that laid these skills out in an easy to remember way:

1. "I Like Books" - Motivation/Having Fun Reading

2. "I See Words" - Print Awareness

3. "I Hear Words" - Phonological Awareness

4. "I Know Letters" - Letter Knowledge

5. "I Know Words" - Vocabulary

6. "I Can Tell A Story" - Comprehension/Story Structure Knowledge

I feel that number one on the list is most important. But these are all skills you can easily be helping your child build as you simply spend time reading to them on a daily basis.

"The single most important activity for building the knowledge required for success in reading is reading aloud to children. If an adult they respect and love reads to them regularly, involves them in significant conversation and is seen reading, the child will turn into a really good reader." - Dariel Bateman, a retired principle and executive director of CalgaryReads.

Three Cheers for Preschool!

I truly believe that many of the problems we deal with in this country could be greatly reduced if we (as a society) invested more in our children and youth. That's why I'm so passionate about helping children fall in love with reading at an early age.

I just received a link to an ABC News video from Reading Rockets... Food for thought on early childhood education. Check it out!

Summer is Here!

O.K. so maybe it's not "officially" summer, but with the 90 degree heat we've been having around here, it sure feels like summer already!!

Literacy Launchpad has wrapped up for the summer, but that doesn't mean the reading fun has to stop. There are summer reading programs going on all over the area (and all over the country)! Read what the Horn Book Magazine's editor has to say about summer reading programs:

I hope the demands of the ever more prevalent summer required-reading list don’t put a crimp on participation in the summer reading clubs and games sponsored by public libraries nationwide. These programs, generally free of charge and blissfully unstructured, offer a combination of recreation, socialization, and reading for pleasure that will do far more good for a child than anything he or she reads “because I have to.” For bookish kids, these clubs offer an easy and too-rare way to shine among their peers; and nonreaders who are in the game strictly for the prizes and refreshments will at least learn their way around a library. Many libraries offer variations on the club to allow participation online or on vacation. See what’s going on in your town.
-Roger Sutton (Editor in Chief, Horn Book Magazine)

Life has been very crazy this year, especially with a baby on the way in a few weeks here. But I'm doing my best to make semi-regular appearances on here. Thanks for checking in! Hopefully life will calm down before too long.

Children's Book Week!

It's Children's Book Week! Hooray! Read more about it in this article. And be sure to take some time to celebrate reading this week!

Making A Love of Reading Happen

Here's a great article for everybody to check out. Read it and take some notes (that's what I did). And also note that it's written from a father's perspective. Dads as reading role models make a big difference in their children's lives!

30,000

30,000 what? Go check out this article at LiteracyNews.com to find out. Parents, go read it now! Thanks to Jen Robinson's Book Page for the link!

New Read-Aloud Info

Reading Rockets has posted a very interesting article on their site about how to effectively read-aloud to children (to enable them to learn the most).

What I found most interesting in the article was that they encouraged reading sophisticated stories with young children, and not ONLY predictable stories and concept books. This is something I have always done, but sometimes second guessed myself on, wondering if I was presenting stories the children wouldn't understand (see some of my thoughts in yesterday's post). Usually my doubts are allayed when I see these "sophisticated stories" become some of the children's favorites, but it was nice to read some research that backed that up!