Are you looking for a secret weapon to help your struggling readers catch up with their peers and learn to love reading? According to this article from the Sydney Morning Herald, you may be overlooking a powerful tool that can help students accelerate their reading development, improve comprehension, and get excited about books. That’s right, it’s the iPad. Here’s why it works:
Friday, June 24, 2011
The iPad: Your secret weapon for helping struggling readers
Friday, June 17, 2011
Summer reading for teachers: 25 books for your reading list
There’s no doubt that summer reading is good for students—there’s evidence of the importance of summer reading everywhere, including some recent findings from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. But picking up a good book isn’t only for kids. Stop your own summer slide by checking out this summer reading list made especially for teachers (and other grown-ups too).
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Summer reading’s secret weapon, plus 10 ways to make it work
You already know that students who read over the summer perform better than their non-reading peers when school starts in the fall. But why? In a recent study at Harvard University, researchers tried to pinpoint what factors made summer reading so effective at improving performance. What they found surprised them.
It wasn’t necessarily access to books, the quality of literature, or even the number of pages read. The main factor leading to effective summer reading was involvement from adult family members.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Classroom activities for National Poetry Month
If your students tend to moan and groan when they hear the word “poetry,” we’ve got some good news: poetry doesn’t have to be boring. In fact, learning about (and writing) poetry can be a lot of fun for your students—especially your struggling readers. So to help you celebrate National Poetry Month, we’re sharing our best ideas for bringing poetry into the classroom.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Is a passion for reading just as important as knowing how to read?
Why do you love to read? What made you transcend your first picture book to tackle chapter books and then full novels and nonfiction? When I ask myself this question, two things come to mind immediately: gathering on my parents’ bed while they read to us at night, and watching Reading Rainbow.
I was just four years old when Reading Rainbow first aired on PBS, so the program was with me from the very beginning as I learned to read. In my favorite episode, host LeVar Burton took viewers behind the scenes of his other role as Geordi La Forge, navigator of the starship Enterprise on Star Trek: The Next Generation. I was fascinated by the hidden process of creating a TV show.
When I learned that after 26 years in production, Reading Rainbow had failed back in August 2009 to secure the funding needed to continue, I was saddened (and a bit behind the curve, because I just found this out a few weeks ago). Of all the shows I enjoyed as a child, Reading Rainbow is the only one I really wish were around for my kids to watch. The article I read said that the focus for early childhood education has moved educational TV toward teaching phonics and more basic reading skills, rather than instilling a love for reading in children.
