Flipping Your Lid: An inside peek at stress and your brain

There’s more to Spring Fever than just restlessness. If you’ve noticed kids at your Read-Aloud or at home acting more rambunctious than usual, there’s a reason. For kids, this time of year includes lots of testing; the excitement of the end of the school year; anxiety about changing grades, classes, or maybe even schools; and the unknown of the ten weeks of summer looming ahead. 

Kids are processing all of these changes, often unconsciously, while they make their way through the day. Does it seem like they have more trouble following directions or regulating their behavior? They are, because handling all of these stress factors increases the demands on their brains.

When people are stressed, their brains are managing that stress while trying to complete other tasks. Their ability to do those other tasks, like follow directions, is slowed and sometimes diminished. And the brains of people who experience chronic, or "toxic," stress suffer damage to neural connections, further impairing brain function. 

In addition, stress takes the thinking part of the brain “off-line,” and gives priority to the amygdala, the part of the brain that manages the fight, flight, or freeze reflex that keeps us safe.

Here’s a great model of what happens in your brain when you are stressed.

• Your arm is your spinal cord.
• Your palm is your brain stem, which regulates basic life functions like breathing, circulation, and heart rate.
• Your thumb is the amygdala, or reptile brain. It’s the most primitive part of the brain whose purpose is survival. It regulates the fight, flight, or freeze impulse.
• The back of your hand is the back of your brain, and your fingers are the prefrontal cortex, or “The Wise Leader.” This part of the frontal lobe is the last to develop in the human brain (so a kid’s prefrontal cortex isn’t yet fully developed), and it is responsible for making reasoned decisions and anticipating and understanding consequences.

When you are calm, all the parts of your brain are integrated and communicating (feel your fingers wrapped around your thumb and touching your palm), and your prefrontal cortex is running the show.  When you are stressed, you “flip your lid” (straighten out your fingers, leaving your thumb in your palm), and the prefrontal cortex gets upstaged by the amygdala trying to keep you safe. Communication between the prefrontal cortex and the rest of the brain shuts down, and the amygdala calls the shots. It is in close communication with your brain stem, making your heart rate go up and sending more blood to your limbs so you can run away, but it’s not communicating with the part of your brain that helps you make reasonable decisions based on consequences.

To get your Wise Leader back in charge, you need to reduce the cognitive load on your brain and, optimally, relax and work through some of the stressors. Imagine a kid at your Read-Aloud who isn't following directions. Instead of scolding him (increasing his anxiety and fueling his fight, flight, or freeze impulse), 

• offer some humor, 
• provide an opportunity to move,
• break down the task into smaller steps and only give one instruction at a time, and
• help him feel safe and welcome.

Before you know it, his developing prefrontal cortex will be back calling the shots, and Spring Fever will recede.



To receive credit for this online training, please fill out the form here.

Fun (not frantic) Read-Alouds

When kids walk in to a Read-Aloud, they may be in a rambunctious mood from playtime, stressed or hungry after a long day, or antsy after sitting in a classroom for hours.  Getting everyone calmed down and on task can sometimes seem impossible.  In fact, in our recent volunteer survey, calming and engaging high-energy kids was the most requested training topic.  Our December 2016 training covered skills and strategies for welcoming, calming, and engaging kids at Read-Alouds--here are some highlights.    

Talk to your fellow volunteers about the skills and strategies in this post. If your entire team is aware of these techniques, implementation will be much easier.

What are your expectations?
Before we start talking about strategies, the expectations you start out with should be appropriate, realistic, and consistent. Expectations should be

• Age-appropriate.  The physical, social, and intellectual needs of the kids you work with will vary. A 4-year-old and an 8-year-old won't behave the same way or be interested in the same things.
• Culturally aware. Remember that you are in their home or in their space, not at a school, library, or your home. Different social, cultural, and ethnic groups have varying social norms about the volume and give-and-take of conversation, especially with family and friends. Just because kids might be louder than you would be doesn’t necessarily mean they are wrong. 

• Trauma-informed. Some TRC kids are experiencing stress that is, in some cases, persistent and toxic. Toxic stress damages brain development, including the connections between parts of the brain. That affects a kid’s executive function. Executive function is the ability to follow directions, manage one’s emotions and reactions to situations, and defer gratification.

To best ways to accommodate our kids’ needs include the following: 

• Have appropriate expectations.
• Be consistent. When the kids know what to expect, it is easier for them to positively engage. You can increase consistency by having a standard welcoming process used by all the teams at your site and by consistently enforcing rules and boundaries.
• Prepare a structured Read-Aloud.
• Give simple, short instructions.

Beginning the Read-Aloud 

One tried-and-true way to draw kids into your Read-Aloud is to engage their curiosity. Try one of the following tactics at your Read-Aloud:

A book box for Zin, Zin, Zin A Violin
contains sheet music, rosin, a
violin string and other related items

• Using a book box, show items related to the theme and encourage kids talk about what they know about the items.  Then they can guess the theme.

• Display the books for the Read-Aloud. Encourage kids to look at the books as they come in. A volunteer or two can talk with the kids about the books and ask them to guess the theme.

• Start reading right away in small groups as kids come in and get their name tags. Once everyone has arrived, gather the group, review the Promises, and introduce the theme.

• Provide word searches or mazes for the kids to work on right away, or tell riddles or jokes related to your theme and ask the kids to guess the theme. A quick internet search will provide lots of options for word searches, mazes, and riddles. For example: type “pirates kid word search” in your Google search box. You’ll come up with results like this.

Not only will you get the kids excited about the theme, but you’ll increase their comprehension by helping them remember what they already know about the topic.

Atten--tion!!

When you need to get the group's attention, use a consistent “attention-getter,” such as these call-and-response phrases, or use the attention-getter currently used by the site staff.  Here are some favorites.  

Call: Bump budda bump bump              Response: bump bump

Call: 1,2,3, eyes on me                        Response: 1, 2 eyes on you

Call: If you can hear my voice, clap once        Response: clap 
Call: If you can hear my voice, clap twice       Response: clap clap

Calming activities

To calm kids before or during your Read-Aloud, try the following physical activities:

• Movement that crosses the midline builds neural pathways between the two hemispheres of the brain and increases focus and concentration.

• Yoga can relax kids and increase focus and concentration. At the training, Charlie demonstrated several poses, including tree, eagle with arms and legs, mountain with prayer hands, rag doll, warrior poses 1, 2, and 3, and child’s pose.

• Focused breathing can calm kids and improve their attention. Stephanie taught several breathing techniques that the kids can do individually, in pairs, or as a group.

Energy-burning activities

After sitting all day at school, sometimes kids need to burn off some excess energy. Try these ideas before and during your Read-Aloud.

• Energizers are short songs or rhymes with movement. They are perfect for vigorous but limited activity. "Go Bananas" is one of our favorites.  
• Games, like "Simon Says," "Red Light Green Light," or "Mother May I?" can provide a needed outlet for energy in a structured way.
• Incorporating kid movement WHILE you read aloud can be as simple as 
• Asking the kids a question and having them turn and talk to each other, instead of selecting one child to answer for the whole group.

• Identifying a part of the book you will be reading that lends itself to the kids acting out and encouraging them to do so when you get to that part. Look for repetition or active language when you pre-read the book. 

• Involving the senses. Let kids snack while listening or give them items related to the story to hold during reading.

When all else fails...

Sometimes you will still have to redirect disruptive behavior. When you do, follow these guidelines.

Connect, then correct

• Develop your relationship with the kids from the get-go. Engage BEFORE there is a problem. Don’t let the first time a kid is talked to at the Read-Aloud be to be corrected.

• Call the kids by name, look them in the eye, sit at their level, and LISTEN to what they have to say.

Put the child to work

• Turning the page,
• Pointing out something in the illustrations,
• Helping set up the activity,
• Helping pass out snacks or set up the book give-away.

Abide by the promises yourselves


Model positive behavior -- your words and behavior can model positive behavior and conversation


Leverage site staff involvement

• Use your site's attention-getting strategies
• Use your site's behavior guidelines or incentives 
• Ask staff for help

Getting to know the kids at your Read-Aloud, welcoming them each week, piquing their curiosity, and including movement to calm your kids or burn energy, along with consistent and appropriate expectations and rules, can make your Read-Alouds fun, not frantic.  Talk with the other volunteers at your site and identify some strategies you'd like to use, and then give them a try.

To receive credit for this online training, please fill out the form here.

At your fingertips: Abundant Read-Aloud themes

As a Reading Connection volunteer, you know how important it is to come to your Read-Aloud prepared. Having a great theme, a variety of good books, an engaging activity, talking points, and sometimes a tasty snack, can make all the difference between a rollicking good time and a stressful evening.

All that planning takes time, though, especially if you are starting from scratch. But there's no need to make it hard on yourself. TRC has dozens of Read-Alouds, planned out, in detail, waiting for you.

Volunteer Central
TRC’s volunteer database, Volunteer Central, contains a bank of themes collected from your Read-Alouds and Reading Road Maps compiled over the past several years. 

To search for a theme for your next Read-Aloud,

• Log in to Volunteer Central.
• Click the "Find Ideas for an Upcoming Read-Aloud" button on the upper right, or select “Read-Aloud Themes List” from the Read-Alouds menu at the top of your screen. The right-hand column of the table indicates if the themes have a Reading Road Map. To only show themes that have a Reading Road Map, click the "Reading Road Map Included?" column header.
• Click on a theme. You'll find a list of the books read and activities done at any Read-Aloud that used this theme. A purple Reading Road Map link next to the theme name will take you to a printable PDF of the Reading Road Map.

You can also search recent Read-Alouds that have been held at your site or at other sites by

• Selecting "Recent Read-Alouds" in the Read-Aloud menu. The system will default to show only your site, but you can select all sites to see themes from other sites. 
• Selecting the date will bring you to the report summary of that Read-Aloud.
• Selecting the theme will take you to a compilation of books and activities used with that theme.

Reading Road Maps
In addition to being stored on Volunteer Central, Reading Road Maps come right to your email every other month.  TRC sends Reading Road Maps to all of our volunteers. 

If you don't always keep the Reading Road Map emails, another way to find Reading Road Maps in Volunteer Central is to sort the themes so that the ones with Reading Road Maps show up first.  If you haven't been receiving the Reading Road Maps, check your spam folder or your Promotions tab, if you use Gmail. 


TRC's Blog

TRC's blog -- yes, the one you are reading right now -- also has lots of Read-Aloud themes and outlines. You can sign up to get it delivered to your email. Just put your email in the field labeled, in purple, "Follow by E-mail" on the right side of the page.

For posts specifically about planning, search for Read-Aloud reports or Read-Aloud themes.  Two Summer Reading posts (this one and this one) also have links to outlines. You can click on the theme (picnics, for example) and it will take you to an outline.

If you have a theme, but need activities, movement ideas, crafts, or ideas about how to best engage preschoolers or older kids, you can search the blog for helpful posts.


Outside Resources

Finally, other organizations and blogs produce themed readings outlines. Start With a Book is one of our favorites, and it happens to be based out of WETA, the PBS station in Arlington. Also available through WETA's Reading Rockets website are Reading Adventure Packs, which also have a list of fiction and nonfiction books related to a theme, and activities.

WorldCat is an international library database that lets you search for books, read reviews, preview contents, and see themed recommended book lists that others (including TRC) have created. If you are looking for books to beef up your Read-Aloud choices, you can even find links to similar books and related subjects. And the best thing about WorldCat is that you can see which library near you has the books you want.

Don't stress
The next time you have a Read-Aloud to plan, remember, we've already done the work for you. Check out Volunteer Central, your email, or Reading Rockets' Start with A Book or Reading Adventure Packs for fully planned Read-Alouds. Gather the books and materials listed on the outline, Reading Road Map, or Read-Aloud report and get ready for a rollicking good time!

To receive credit for this online training, please fill out the form here.

Parental Engagement in TRC Programs

Recently, The Reading Connection (TRC) had the opportunity to work with graduate students in a research methods class at Marymount University (Arlington, Va.) on a project to identify ways to strengthen our efforts to involve the parents of kids who participate in our programs. 

What are we doing now? Currently, three of our programs help parents support their child's literacy development.

Our Read-Aloud program, conducted for kids ages four and up, is provided by volunteers who visit housing sites weekly to read aloud with kids, talk, conduct activities and help kids choose a new book to keep. Parents are welcome to attend with their child, but more often, kids come on their own and take a new book home with them. By providing books for kids to read at home, TRC helps parents create a home environment that supports reading.

In the Book Club, parents help their children choose books each month and receive tips on how to share those books with their kids when the books arrive in their monthly package. In addition, parents receive quarterly information about child and literacy development and information about available resources. The Book Club is targeted at families with children ages newborn to 5 years but serves families with kids of all ages.

TRC's Reading Families Playgroups and Workshops work directly with the parents of Read-Aloud and Book Club children on literacy development. Each playgroup or workshop includes exploration of several children's books, modeling of effective book-sharing strategies, discussion and the opportunity for parents to choose free books for their children.

The Marymount students found much in the literature that validates TRC's programming, while also revealing some areas where our programs could be enhanced. Here are some of the highlights.

TRC programs support parent engagement
The research review showed areas of parental engagement that positively affect scholastic achievement, which TRC programs encourage. 

Home-based involvement  
Studies found a positive correlation between home-based parental involvement and grades and attitude toward education as well as decreased behavioral issues. Home-based involvement was also found to be the most widely used form of scholastic engagement among African American families (Wang & Sheikh-Khali, 2014 and Ganotice & King, 2014).

TRC programs support home-based involvement by providing age-appropriate children's books to be read at home and by teaching parents about literacy development and book-sharing strategies. 

Academic socialization refers to parents talking with kids about school work and the importance of education as well as supporting educational goals. This type of engagement had the strongest positive relationship with academic success among adolescents. However, children of all ages benefit from this kind of parental engagement (Wang & Sheikh-Khali, 2014; Reece, Staudt, & Ogle, 
2013; Ganotice & King, 2014).

TRC’s programs (described above) help parents understand literacy development and create supportive home reading environments, which includes the crucial importance of conversation between parent and child. We encourage this conversation through the tips provided with each book from the Book Club and by providing bookmarks each week for the kids to take home from the Read-Aloud program. With a little information about the Read-Aloud theme and prompts for parents, we hope this bookmark, provided in Spanish and English, will help parents talk with their kids about their experience at the Read-Aloud and support their learning and curiosity. 

In reviewing the literature, the student researchers also found a Parent Reading Belief Inventory. This inventory demonstrated that parents’ beliefs were significantly associated with the reading practices between parent and child, along with the child’s attitude towards the book.

When socio-economic status is held constant, parental beliefs were significantly related to reading practices and child’s attitude and motivation (DeBaryshe & Binder, 1994). The higher scoring parents (those with more positive beliefs about reading) read to their children more frequently, had more books, had higher quality interactions and discussions with the child that stimulate language skills, and had a higher reported interest in books by their children. 

For TRC, this means when we can influence a parent’s beliefs about reading, we can make an impact. Reading Families Workshops and Playgroups are designed to foster parents’ positive attitudes and beliefs about reading in addition to teaching skills and providing resources.

Where socio-economic status does matter is in parents’ access to resources to promote literacy and in their teaching style with their kids (Lam, Chow-Yeung, Wong, Lau, & Tse, 2013; Vandermaas-Peeler et al., 2009). TRC's programs target at-risk families to provide free, high quality books and teach effective teaching strategies to parents. 

Barriers to participation 
The literature about parental engagement also identified several factors that prevent some families from fully engaging in school or community programs, including schedule conflicts, child care responsibilities, working or going to school, and lack of energy in parents (Lamb-Parker et al., 2001). It also identified income as affecting the various resources and opportunities available to families. Libraries were not frequently used for a variety of reasons (Sonnenschein and Schmidt, 2000).

By bringing our services to families where they live, TRC's programs remove some of these logistical barriers. 

While the Marymount literature review found research supporting TRC’s programming, it also identified areas where we can adjust our curriculum and programming with intensified focus on enhancing parental engagement. These areas include, but are not limited to, the following:
• Renewed effort to encourage library use,
• Strengthening parents’ understanding of literacy development to enable them to more effectively advocate for their children at school,
• Explicitly encouraging conversation and shared reading activities by providing prompts and teaching an increasing variety of book-sharing techniques.

As TRC continues to grow, adding Read-Aloud and Book Club partners in the Washington, DC metro area, we also will continue to deepen and enhance our programs to better serve developing readers and their families.


For a bibliography of studies cited in this post, click here. 

Have a ball reading!

Our last blog post featured a Read-Aloud about being yourself. For the activity, kids and volunteers took turns answering questions about themselves based on questions from a paper cube they rolled like a die.

Volunteers found the cube with questions online.  They discovered that having the cube to roll to prompt kids to answer questions was a great tool. 

You don't need a theme-specific prop to use this idea at your Read-Aloud. You can get the kids talking with each other and moving at the same time by using a beach ball to prompt questions. You can use it at any point or at several points during your Read-Aloud. For example:

• With the kids standing or sitting in a circle, toss a beach ball around to each kid and have them answer a question about themselves or about the Read-Aloud.

• Before, ask a theme-related question to start the Read-Aloud and get the kids thinking about what they already know about the theme.
• What lives in the ocean?
• What is your favorite food?

• During, ask questions while you are reading:
• What will happen next?
• Do you agree or disagree with the character's choice?
• Does this remind you of another book you've read?

• After, ask questions about books the books you've read:
• What was your favorite character?
• If you could change the ending, what would happen?
• Why did a character make a certain choice?
• What did you like or dislike about this story?
• Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

• You can also use the beach ball to get the kids to:
• Answer questions about themselves (likes, dislikes, etc.);
• Think up rhymes with words you provide;
• Name things in categories related to your theme like nocturnal animals or feelings;
• Name something they learned during the Read-Aloud.

You can use any kind of ball to do this, even a tennis ball, but a beach ball is easy to catch and store and isn't likely to break anything if it gets away from the group.

You can just ask one question at a time and throw the ball around, with each child or volunteer answering as he or she catches it, or you can use a dry-erase marker to write specific questions on your beach ball. The person catching the ball would answer the question his right thumb is on when he or she catches it.

In addition to being a way to encourage and organize conversation at your Read-Aloud, using a ball has the added benefit of integrating physical activity into the reading experience. So have a ball at your Read-Aloud and get some conversation rolling!

To receive credit for this online training, please fill out the form here.

The Reading Connection opens 14th Read-Aloud program site in Silver Spring

Our newest Read-Aloud site opened on Thursday, March 10, 2016. Our program partner is the YMCA's Youth & Family Services, located at the community center at the Northwest Park Apartments in Silver Spring. The children who attend the Read-Aloud attend the JoAnn Leleck Elementary School at Broad Acres, where 95 percent of the children are eligible for free and reduced price meals.  

Eleven enthusiastic kids, ranging in age from 4 to 11, came to the first Read-Aloud. They had a great time listening to books about bears (the theme), which volunteers read to groups of kids.   

Next came a theme-related activity, which was making a small bear out of a toilet-paper tube, with the addition of construction paper eyes, ears and paws. 

Finally, volunteers helped each child choose a new book, provided by TRC, to take home.  

The Read-Aloud program is designed to bring together volunteer readers and at-risk children, with the aim of providing the children positive experiences with reading and free, new books to keep. Thank you to our great new volunteers, the staff at the Y and kudos to Stephanie Berman, TRC director of program operations, for handling all the details of the new site opening!  Happy reading! 

Dust Bunnies with Jan Thomas: When less is more!

Dust bunnies. Who knew they were so funny?

Jan Thomas did and let us in on their secret.  You’ll never look at cleaning under the couch the same way again.

Thomas writes picture books with bright, bold illustrations, lovable characters, humor, suspense, action and irony. She writes short, punchy text that sometimes rhymes and repeats, often with a surprising twist at the end.





The combination of bold illustration, spry text and witty story lines makes her picture books excellent read-alouds. Thomas adeptly builds suspense and drama through her characters' facial expressions and crisp dialog. And like Mo Willems' work, although her books look very simple and can be read to very young listeners, their wit and irony engage older listeners, too.

What Will Fat Cat Sit On?

The answer to that burning question drives this story. Full of suspense, emotion and animal sounds, this picture book will keep listeners predicting and laughing right up to its surprise ending.

A Birthday for Cow

Some of the same characters from Fat Cat make a cake to surprise Cow for his birthday. Duck keeps trying to add a turnip to the recipe, but Pig and Cow stop him. Does Cow really want cake for his birthday? Explore irony and birthday tradition with this winning picture book.

Can You Make a Scary Face?

This interactive book asks the reader to follow directions. Young kids will love wiggling, dancing and making faces. Pair it with Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems, The Monster at the End of the Book by Grover (and Jon Stone) or The Book With No Pictures by B.J. Novak for more interactive fun.

Is Everyone Ready for Fun?

Keep the kids moving after reading Can You Make a Scary Face? with this action-packed picture book, where the goats and Chicken disagree on what is fun. Encourage the kids to predict what the goats will do and how Chicken will respond, while acting out the story as you read it.

Pair Thomas' books with Mo Willems’ Pigeon or Elephant and Piggy books and Doreen Cronin’s books for a wry take on animal antics. Or, on their own, Thomas' books could be used to introduce the concept of irony to an older group of kids.

Don't be fooled by the simplicity of Thomas' illustrations or text. She has plenty of surprises tucked in her picture books. Reoccurring characters allow for inside jokes and allusions to other stories that older readers will enjoy. Even younger kids will love finding "Easter eggs" Thomas includes for her readers.

Rhyming dust bunnies? Elegance and silliness in the same book? Through her picture books, Jan Thomas proves that less is more.

To receive credit for this online training, please fill out the form here.

The power of choice

Book choice is part of every Read-Aloud. Choosing a book isn’t the icing on the cake, it’s an important layer of the cake itself! Empowering kids to choose the books they want to read is important to their literacy development and reading motivation.

We know helping kids choose books can be challenging for Read-Aloud volunteers, especially if kids are shy or you don't know them well. There’s a fine line between providing support and guidance and making the choice for the reader. If two kids want the same book, of the remaining books, what's a good substitute?  





Know your customer. 
The publisher Scholastic surveyed kids and found that 70 percent of kids said they wanted books that made them laugh. Check out the graphic to see the other categories kids say they're most interested in.  

Get to know the kids at your Read-Aloud (or in your life). Find out what interests them. Ask them questions about their likes and dislikes. Pay attention to how they react to various books and topics you present. It helps to have a sense of their age, grade at school and reading level, but don't let these factors  prevent a kid from choosing a book outside her “range.” 




Know your stock.
Be familiar with what is available in the give-away bin (or the bookstore or library, whichever is appropriate). As you set out the selection of books, take time to keep your eye out for authors, illustrators and series that kids have asked for or have been excited about. If you are at a library or bookstore, ask the staff about authors, illustrators and series that are especially good or popular. Learn about the different formats and genres available for kids. Check out this blog to build your children's book expertise!

Early Reader

Make suggestions.
You may think of “Customers who bought this also bought…” as an Amazon invention, but booksellers and librarians have been doing it since bookstores and libraries were invented. If you know a kid likes a certain author or illustrator, help him find more work by that person. If you know she liked a particular story or topic, help her find more of the same. If a kid seems curious or uncertain about a book, help him look through it or provide a preview by reading a little bit aloud. 

The key to this process is asking questions and listening carefully to the answers the kids give you. Remember that you can request specific books or series for kids at your Read-Aloud from the TRC office. Just include the request with the kid's name on your Read-Aloud report form or send Stephanie an email.

Encourage the reader to "try it on."


I-PICK is a method for choosing books used in some schools. If you find yourself with a kid stymied over whether a book appeals to her, encourage her to pick it up and take a look. Then walk her through the I-PICK questions. If she answers yes to the last three letters and has a reason (even just "it looks fun") to read the book, then it's a good fit.

Have the child read a page or two of the book to himself.
As he is reading, tell him to put down one finger for every
word  he doesn't know

If a child asks you if a book is too hard for him, have him try the five-finger test and make his choice based on that. But don't prohibit him from taking the book even if it is challenging. Interest and motivation can help a child build tenacity. 









Let it be.
This isn’t a do-or-die situation. TRC kids will get another chance next week to choose another book. Hopefully, the kids in your life will have many more chances to choose and try out books too. Even if you think a book is too difficult or too easy for a child, honor her choice. People are drawn to books for all kinds of reasons: inspiration, comfort, motivation, curiosity, the desire to be one of the crowd. These are all perfectly good reasons to choose books.

 To receive credit for this online training, please fill out the form here.