Math + Reading = Fun

Reading about math?  Boring! Think again. Sharing books about math with kids can get them to think about math and reading in a totally new light.  A great book about math can build enthusiasm and skill in both math and reading at the same time!  

Number Sense

For math to be fun, kids need to have good number sense. That means being at ease playing with numbers and seeing patterns. A Remainder of One by Elinor J. Pinczes is a delightful book about 25 ladybugs marching in 2's, 3's, 4's, and finally 5's. It is not fun being the one left over. Pinczes wrote another book on grouping numbers titled One Hundred Hungry Ants. Both books are entertaining, have cute illustrations, and are easy to read aloud. Lining up paper clips, Cheerios, or the kids themselves in groups is a concrete way of exploring the concept.

   

Were you stumped by word problems that involved trains and tunnels? Spaghetti and Meatballs for All! deals with the more realistic problem of seating people for a dinner party. At first is seems so simple until you realize there is more than one way to solve the problem. This book allows kids to look at different options. There is more than one "right" answer. Other books that help children have fun with numbers include The Grapes of Math by Greg Tang and Sir Cumference and All the King's Tens by Cindy Neuschwander.

Measurement

Measurement seems obvious to adults, but it is often confusing to children. There are so many different units of measurement. Kids need practice and some personal ownership. 

Leo Lionni's classic Inch by Inch is about an inchworm who outsmarts the birds who want to eat him by measuring them. Measuring Penny, by Loreen Leedy, is a cute book about a child measuring her dog, Penny, in every way possible. 

Children love learning how to use a measuring tape and measuring themselves. Let them practice by finding the size of their hands, feet, and heads. They also think it is fun to measure with non-standard units like toothpicks or pennies. 

                     

STEM

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education is an important focus for American schools, but science seems to get all the attention.  We seldom focus on the last three areas when we read to kids.  There are now so many great math books available that it is easy to include them when you read with a child. The links below can help you find math books and activities that most interest you.

Thanks to a generous donation, TRC now has a variety of math books and math activity packets for volunteers to use. Click here for a list of books and activity packs available.

For more math titles and activities, click here.  Look for more information about an upcoming volunteer seminar about integrating STEM themes into Read-Alouds.

To learn more about integrating STEM themes into Read-Alouds, join us for a volunteer seminar on Tuesday, March 19 at 7:00 p.m..  Location is to be determined.  Contact Stephanie Berman for more information.

Guest blog post by TRC volunteer and former elementary school teacher, Sally Berman.


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

Working towards the dream: race at Read-Alouds

As we remember Martin Luther King Jr. this week, it's a good time to examine the ways that inequality seeps into the corners of everyday life in ways that are easy for the privileged to overlook. While race is never an easy thing to talk about, it's an important thing to talk about, and it's important to be aware of the small racial inequalities that are cultural, not legal, and are therefore harder to overcome.

I was lucky in my childhood: if I went to the library and pulled a book off the shelf, chances are the characters in it would look like me. It's hard to talk about, embarrassing for me to admit--and symptomatic of larger cultural failures in the United States--but the fact is (and there's no way to beat around the bush): picture books are overwhelmingly about white people.And, as discussed in the New York Times' recent article, children of color don't have the privilege of seeing themselves in the books they're reading.While it's important for children of every color to be exposed to books with characters who have different skin tones--it certainly would have been good for me--it's exceptionally important to keep this in mind at TRC Read-Alouds. Because economic and racial inequities go hand-in-hand in the United States, statistically speaking, the overwhelming majority of Read-Aloud attendees aren't white.

The ideal picture book--for any child-- features characters of varying race without being about race. The unfortunate truth is that these books are harder to find--especially if you, like me, were raised mostly reading books about white people.  But they're out there. A personal favorite is The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats.

Another way to try to combat this problem is to choose books like Circle of Friends by Giora Carmi, where race is ambiguous. 

And of course, books that feature animals circumvent issues of characters' race altogether--though it would be best if we didn't have to depend on that. 

Cultural racial inequality in the United States is pervasive and historical and hard to beat. We still have not achieved Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream. So when you choose books, flip through and think about what messages the races of people in the illustrations will send. Make choices consciously. Be aware. 

Guest blog post written by Anna McCormally.

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

New Read-Aloud program at Columbia Grove!

We are excited to announce a new partnership with Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing to launch a Read-Aloud program at the Columbia Grove apartments. As with all of our Read-Aloud programs, the volunteers are essential to making the program a success, so please consider volunteering at Columbia Grove or encouraging your friends and neighbors to do so.

Columbia Grove is located in south Arlington, off of Columbia Pike and near Bailey's Crossroads at 1010 S. Frederick Street. The 208 units in 14 garden apartment buildings are situated among large areas of green space and outdoor play areas. Over 100 children call Columbia Grove home and attend Abingdon and Claremont elementary schools. The Read-Aloud program will be the first children's programming at Columbia Grove.

The Read-Aloud program’s goal is to share the joy and excitement of books with children living in homeless shelters and affordable apartment complexes. Volunteers bring books to life during one-hour Read-Alouds that engage children and include themed hands-on activities. 

The Read-Aloud program at Columbia Grove will be held on Mondays from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. beginning in late February 2013.   

New Read-Aloud volunteers must attend an orientation session, clear a background check and commit to reading one Monday a month for a minimum of one year. All volunteers must be at least 18 years of age. Orientation for Columbia Grove volunteers will be held on Saturday, February 2, 2013 from 10:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at the Arlington Central Library at 1015 N. Quincy St., Arlington, VA 22201.

Current Read-Aloud volunteers are encouraged to help out with the first few months of Read-Alouds at Columbia Grove and to spread the word about this new program. This is a perfect opportunity to encourage friends and family to become Read-Aloud volunteers.

For more information or to sign up as a volunteer, visit The Reading Connection website at http://thereadingconnection.org/volunteer or e-mail program manager Stephanie Berman at sberman@thereadingconnection.org. 

Ninjas! Read-Aloud

Our team took a stealth approach to our last Read-Aloud with a theme of "Ninjas!" We gathered as a large group and began with the non-fiction book, "You Wouldn't Want to Be a Ninja!" to learn exactly what a ninja is and where the name comes from.  

To set the stage, we also read a bit about the historical role of ninjas in 16th century Japan. We moved on to some picture books, including: 

• Wink, the Ninja Who Wanted to be Noticed by J. C. Phillipps 
• Wink, the Ninja Who Wanted to Nap by J. C. Phillipps 
• Nighttime Ninja by Barbara DaCosta
• Ninja Cowboy Bear Presents the Way of the Ninja by David Bruins and Hilary Leung
• The Boy Who Cried Ninja by Alex Latimer

We also had a large selection of older reader books that were thematically appropriate (Stone Rabbit, Choose Your Own Adventure, etc.). However, most were graphic novels and did not lend themselves well to being read aloud in a group setting, and the kids opted to stay together this night as our group was smaller than usual.

After reading we moved to the tables to create ninja headbands. We took 3" x 44" strips of muslin fabric and used fabric markers to write our ninja names using a ninja alphabet one volunteer found online.  

While we worked the kids were able to taste a variety of Japanese snacks including green tea drinks, ginger cookies, rice cracker snack mix, and plain and wasabi dried seaweed.  

Kids who finished their headbands quickly moved back to the rug to play Sensei Says (like Simon Says with ninja moves). We said things like "Master Tsutsu [from one of the books we read] says put your hands at your heart and bow," or "Master Tsutsu says kick your leg once."

We had planned ahead and added a few ninja books to the book selection choices and those were well received during the give-away portion of the evening.



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

The advantages of independent bookstores

Calling all last-minute shoppers! Feeling like it's getting too late to order online? Do yourself a huge favor and visit a local independent bookstore. You're in for an experience that far surpasses shopping for books at either a big-box store or on the online site who-shall-not-be-named.   


Families enjoy an event at Hooray For Books!
in Old Town Alexandria.

What do independent bookstores offer that you can't find using online book sources?  Or at chains?

• A curated selection of books. Small stores have to prioritize, which means they select those books that, in their judgment, reflect the best and most saleable books. 
• Knowledgable booksellers who are happy to give you a quick rundown of books they think you'll like. Tell them what you're looking for, you'll be astonished at their encyclopedic knowledge. And if nothing they suggest seems quite right, ask them again -- they love the challenge and understand the satisfaction of putting the right book in someone's hands.    
• A relaxed atmosphere where people love to talk about books.  If you're there with kids, it's totally OK to let them sit or lie on the carpet and leaf through a selection of books.  In fact, join them on the floor and have an impromptu family read-aloud.  
• Author appearances, where you can meet and talk to authors you admire. The children in your life can participate in story hours, meet authors and illustrators and participate in hands-on, high-quality book-related experiences.

Politics & Prose Bookstore invited students to
 hear Walter Dean Myers speak on the day he
became the National Ambassador for Children's Literature.

In addition to their role as gathering places for book-lovers and neighbors, local independent stores are good for your local economy. They return 68 cents of each dollar to the local economy. National chain stores return 43 cents, and online stores return 0 cents on the dollar to the local economy, according to the 3/50 Project, which advocates for local retail.  

Here are independent bookstores located around The Reading Connection's office in Arlington, Va.

Child's Play (Arlington, Va., Baltimore, Md., McLean, Va., Rockville, Md., Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, Md.)
Fairy Godmother, 319 7th Street SE, Washington, DC 20003
Hooray For Books! (Alexandria, Va.)
Kramerbooks & Afterwards (Washington, D.C.)
One More Page (Arlington, Va.)
Politics & Prose (Washington, D.C.)

To find the indie bookstores in your town, visit IndieBound.  




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

The power of imagination

We often hear it said that reading feeds the imagination. But the imagination also feeds reading. 

Being able to imagine what she is reading allows a reader to better understand the words she is reading. Experience (that builds background knowledge) and a healthy imagination work together to support reading comprehension.

An article by Doug Buehl for the Wisconsin Education Association Council explains how we use our imaginations to understand what we are reading and provides strategies to help kids develop their imaginations.

According to Buehl, kids need chances to practice creating mental images based on their senses. Here are some ideas (from Buehl and TRC) for beefing up imaginations.

• Encourage kids to describe things they’ve seen or experienced. (What did you see at the zoo today? What did you do at the birthday party?) Remembering and describing objects and experiences can help a child learn to use descriptive words.

• Pause when you are reading aloud to talk about what you are imagining as you read. Next, encourage the kids to tell you “what they see in their heads” when you read a passage. (Now the child is using descriptive words she gets from the story to create a new mental picture instead of using words to describe a memory or mental picture she already has.)

Grace acts out Anansi the Spider

• Ask the kids to imagine themselves as an eyewitness, and to describe the story as if they were there. 

• After reading a passage from a book, ask kids about their first impression of a character, an event or the setting. Ask them which words or phrases helped create that impression.

By helping kids strengthen their imaginations, we build their reading comprehension and, in turn, their motivation to read.  When you understand what you are reading, reading is more fun. 


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

Online Story Time

When an author reads his or her book aloud, he or she reads with the inflection and pronunciation intended. In the past, the only way to hear authors read their work was to attend a reading.  Now, technologyhas provided many possibilities.  

Barnes & Noble's Online Storytime features one story a month. The story is read by the author. The book's illustrations providing the online images. Instead of showing a full-page spread of the illustration, the camera zooms in on an item as it relates to the text the author is reading. This allows the child to focus on a particular portion of the image to best understand how it relates to the text. The image is always moving, usually zooming in or out, which appeals to kids' desire to watch a moving picture. The characters in the image do not move though, as the illustrations are exactly the same as the illustrations on the page of a book. It's a perfect combination of online technology and the picture book format.

Currently, there are 16 stories available on Barnes & Noble's Online Storytime. They range from classics such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle to new favorites such as Pinkalicious by Victoria Kann.  This month's story is The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn.

A second example of this concept has been put together by the Screen Actors Guild Foundation and called Storyline Online. At storylineonline.net, famous actors read their favorite children's book in much the same fashion as Barnes & Noble's Online Storytime. You can watch Betty White read Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion or James Earl Jones read To be a Drum by Evelyn Coleman.  Storyline Online also offers related activities for each story as well as related books.

Both sites provide information about the author. Storyline Online also provides a short bio of the illustrator and the reader. Kids may feel an affinity with the author, now that they know a little something about him or her.

Watch a story for your own enjoyment, or spend some quality time with children showing them a new story or an old favorite read by the author or an actor.



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