Building Community

An elementary education faculty member asked for a cart of books (yes, people still do that and it's a good thing) to help her pre-service teachers understand ways they can use children's literature to build classroom community. This little mini-project led to more thinking about what is important to a positive, healthy classroom community. It seems clear that classes with kids who respect each other, show kindness, understand that differences are okay, have a sense of the importance of helping others, and who have confidence can create great community. In the end what I ended up creating was a list of character education books. If students have good character, they will be willing and even active participants in building a positive classroom community.

The full list of books we had available that I pulled are listed here via Goodreads. Some of the books I highlighted in class and we did an activity with include:

Title and Author	Community Related Themes
Horsefly and Honeybee by Randy Cecil	cooperation, friendship and resolving conflict to work together
Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson	bullying, friendship, kindness, new students
My Name is Sangoel by Karen Lynn Williams	communication, cultural differences, ownership, confidence
Blackout by John Rocco	community, family, listening, paying attention to others
Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed by Mo Willems	individuality, confidence, trying new things, being different, ostracizing others
Too Tall Houses by Gianna Marino	competition, cooperation, friendship, compromise
Chester's Way by Kevin Henkes	stubbornness, friendship, openness, social acceptance, new friends
Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett	helpfulness, generosity, community, appreciating differences

Among others, the "Character Education" Grab and Go Booklists from NoveList K-8 are very helpful if you have access to NoveList (in NC this can be accessed through NC Wise Owl for K-12 teachers and students - in the near future the service will be removed for colleges, private schools and public library card holders).

Literacy and STEM Collaborations

In preparation for presenting at a local conference, I have been thinking about how librarians and instructional technologists can collaborate with teachers and connect to both STEM principles and

literacy goals. Helping kids become more literate and teachers achieve the goals of the Common Core State Standards and teacher evaluation standards in our state. The idea here is that integrating STEM and literacy doesn't mean that science teachers must require students to read a book about the weather in an earth science unit or math teachers have to find time for a "history of math/famous mathematician" project in order to have students read something. Librarians can work with teachers to find more creative and authentic ways to integrate reading and literacy into their curriculum. When educators treat literacy like an objective to check off a list then we aren't really helping our students become literate.

So, integrating literacy well is in part is about defining it more broadly. (Although, not as broadly as it is often defined - students can now be math literate, digitally literate, technologically literate, media literate, information literate, scientifically literate, transliterate, phew! It seemed easier when they just had to read.) The literacy I want to develop definitely involves reading and strategies to improve reading but is also taught through writing, speaking and listening. Can your math students explain their thought processes? Can a student learning a scientific concept turn it into a story to embed the concepts in their memories? Can an algebra student teach another student how to do a difficult problem and troubleshoot errors? When students can write and speak about what they are learning, they are becoming more literate. If librarians and classroom teachers can also integrate some authentic reading into what they are working on, all the better.

STEM learning can not be left up only to the math and science teachers, it's important to integrate these skills and learning goals into the humanities - the arts, social studies, and language arts all benefit from integrating core principles of STEM education. Adding a little coding or robotics into a digital storytelling project - what fun!

Bethany Smith and I will be presenting ways to integrate STEM and literacy at the WCPSS Convergence Learning Symposium as well as at the 2014 ISTE conference. We are sharing ideas on integrating reading online, creating with MaKey MaKey, designing with TinkerCad, printing in 3-D, telling stories with Legos and more. We hope to continue to get ideas from participants on how to involve more science and math teachers in the literacy movement, more humanities teachers in the STEM movement and more librarians/instructional tech folks in the collaboration movement.

The Future of Reading

The Future of Reading

by Kerri Brown Parker

As one of the coordinators of children's activities for the 2014 NC Literary Festival, I was asked to do a guest post for the Mom in Chapel Hill blog regarding the theme of the festival: “The Future of Reading.” So what will this future entail? Drum roll please……….the future of reading will be …. Reading! However, it may be more interactive and social than we have experienced in the past; it may involve words streaming past a reader’s eyes instead of eyes moving across the page; it may be more image heavy and the topics will continue to push the limits of what kids once may have read. All of this change in reading is due to advances in technology changing interactions with the written word.

However, as with all change and technology, moderation is important not only because of “screen time” but also to enhance your child’s preferences. Current research suggests that kids have similar feelings about reading online/on a screen and reading from a traditional book so model both behaviors and provide them with both opportunities. What does this mean for parents? Focus on simply giving children an opportunity to read and asking them to read widely, in terms of format, genre and style.

Kids will have many opportunities in school to dissect texts and practice close reading. Hopefully at home they have opportunities to read what they love and find engaging. Although the value of independent reading/free reading/print exposure is debated by educators for its influence on improved comprehension; it is generally accepted that kids who read more have a more positive attitude towards reading and are more likely to develop self-confidence as readers. Becoming a life-long, active reader helps with vocabulary development and is generally correlated with school success. So, if you are looking for some new ways to encourage reading and are looking to how technology might influence a change in the way we read, check out this handful of technology-enhanced reading tools.

Interactive eTexts:

Collins Big Cat apps – iPad – preschool/early elementary

Inanimate Alice - web-based - upper elementary/middle school

Reading Rainbow - iPad and Kindle Fire - preschool/early elementary

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore - iPad app

PopOut! Book Apps - Android and iPad - preschool/early elementary

Create Your Own:

Comic Master - short graphic novels

My Story Maker - easy storytelling/picture book creator

A Variety of Tools

Nifty New Tools:

Spritz your Reading - increase the speed and watch the words go by (click on the “Click to Spritz” to try it out)

Curriculet and Read Actively - eReaders that track progress - useful for reading accountability

Find More:

Common Sense Media App, Movie, Book Reviews

Interactive eBook Reviews

There is of course also great web content out there for kids to read and terrible web content out there for kids to read - teach your child to read websites critically and if your child is attracted to reading online, try the websites at the American Library Association’s “Great Websites for Kids” to engage them in fiction and informational reading.  In the end, it’s not about technology versus print; find what your child will read, offer choice as well as new opportunities and encourage reading in all its new and exciting formats.

Images Used under Creative Commons Usage Rights:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f5/Young_boy_reading_manga.jpg/1280px-Young_boy_reading_manga.jpg http://geco.nu/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/6917370714_164fd9e52a_o.jpg