Summer Reading: A New Take on an Old Tradition

As school lets out and kids head to the pool and camp, schools and libraries remind parents to encourage summer reading. It's a hot topic these days (pardon the pun), but it's not a new idea. What are we talking about when we promote and participate in summer reading? Where exactly did “summer reading” come from? 

Decades of research show that reading is one way to stem kids’ summer learning losses and bridge the achievement gap. But many, many years before those studies, adults were looking for ways to help children stimulate their thinking, improve their reading skills and have something constructive to do when school was out of session. 

Public libraries took the lead. The origins of the summer reading log are more than a century old! Beginning in the 1890s, libraries began concerted efforts to reach kids in the summer with special programming, including read-alouds and book distributions on playgrounds and activities themed to children’s interests. Take a look at this paper on the history of youth summer reading programs in public libraries if you are curious to know even more about “vacation reading clubs” and summer reading themes of old.


When public libraries started summer reading programs, there wasn’t any research on how best to encourage kids to read during the summer months. There’s a growing body of research on what makes summer reading effective, but not everyone is on the same page when it comes to stemming the summer slide. 

For some kids, summer reading is assigned — a list of titles from a teacher who wants certain books read and readers ready to discuss them when school begins again. Others get more relaxed recommendations and encouragement to head to the library, where summer reading is logged and rewarded with activities and prizes. Publishers and others offer incentive programs, but any one strategy to promote summer reading is unlikely to close the achievement gap all by itself.

TRC has created its own summer reading initiative, We Are Readers, that includes several strategies to prevent summer learning loss and build reading motivation. If you want summer reading to have a real impact: 

Connect kids with titles that match their interests and abilities and are books they choose to read or have read to them. Find out what they like or are curious about by asking lots of questions and waiting for and listening to kids’ answers. 

• If you need book recommendations, the free resources from Start with a Book build on what young children already like — dinosaurs, bugs, building, animals, sports, space, music and more — and provide fiction and nonfiction titles along with ideas for activities and suggestions to help get kids thinking, talking, creating and exploring.

• You’ll find similarly helpful recommendations for book titles and constructive conversations about themes with kid appeal in the Reading Road Maps featured on TRC’s Volunteer Central or in Read-Aloud summaries on this blog. Take cues from kids, then dive into topics like flatulence, superheroes, alligators or extreme weather.

Get books into kids’ hands. Kids need access to lots and lots of quality books that they can and want to read or have read to them. Do you spend your summer reading stuff you don’t want to? Don’t expect kids to either. 

• Children participating in TRC's Read-Aloud program choose a new book each time they attend a Read-Aloud. Families in the Book Club are also given a choice of books when they order each month. Get to know the titles that are available for ownership and what’s on the shelves of the reading corner so you can be knowledgeable whenever guidance is needed.

• The public library is also a great place to choose books for summer reading. Search subject headings in local library catalogs online or WorldCat to help kids find books they want to read.

• Remember that reading material doesn’t have to be a book. Magazines, comics and graphic novels may be a better match for kids’ reading abilities and interests.

Talk, talk and talk some more! Ask questions and guide conversations so you can gauge whether kids get what they are reading or listening to. Talking with kids about what they read is one of the best ways to help them learn to read and think critically.

• Talk as you would when you read aloud, with appropriate pauses, good inflection and enthusiasm. Practice turn taking in conversation and try not to answer kids’ questions until they have finished asking them.

• It can be tricky for kids (and adults) to take what they are thinking and put it into words. But this process leads to a deeper understanding. It takes practice, as does listening to the thoughts of others. Make time to talk and listen. 

As the days get hotter, summer reading might not be the first thing on kids’ minds. But get books in front of them, start reading and talking together and you’ll definitely make an impression with this old-fashioned way to beat the heat and fill long summer days.

Guest blog post by TRC Advisory Council member and Belle of the Book, Rachael Walker.

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

Breaking Rules: Better on Paper

While I was searching through Reading Road Maps on TRC’s Volunteer Central, looking for a theme, I came across Trouble Makers. It was perfect. My Read-Aloud team had been looking for a way to reinforce TRC’s Promises and reset expectations at the beginning of a new year.

I picked out a slew of great books, including one of my childhood favorites - Judy Blume's Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. Tales tells the story of 9-year-old Peter Hatcher, and more often than not, Peter’s mischievous younger brother – Fudge. Fudge is always causing trouble: destroying Peter’s homework, dumping food on the floor, cutting his own hair. All in all, Blume penned five books featuring Fudge and his antics (Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great, Superfudge, Fudge-a-mania and Double Fudge).

Picking books was the easy part. When I began to plan an activity to reinforce the theme, I worried I had made the wrong decision. Columbia Grove readers are a large, enthusiastic, vocal bunch. An invitation to engage in troublemaking seemed like a recipe for disaster. Instead, I decided to have the kids write about Fudge doing something wild and crazy – rather than doing anything wild themselves. 

At the Read-Aloud, we used the TRC Promises (especially "RESPECT") as a way to introduce the theme and start a discussion about getting into trouble. In a large group, we read a chapter from Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing where Fudge gets into all kinds of trouble. In small groups, we read other books about mischief from the Trouble Makers Reading Road Map as well as M is for Mischief: An A to Z of Naughty Children.

The kids were given a prompt and each wrote one sentence about something mischievous Fudge did on his first day of school. Their responses were wonderfully all over the place, with many (mostly those written by the boys) involving various bodily functions. We compiled their sentences, added a conclusion and bound the pages together into a "book": Fudge-a-Palooza.  

For kids who quickly finished writing their sentence, we had a word search waiting with synonyms for "trouble maker". And for a snack we served, appropriately, fudge.

The Columbia Grove Fudge story

That week, Columbia Grove readers had two things to sign. As always, they signed their new books to grow their identity as readers as well as their personal libraries. They also signed the title page of Fudge-a-Palooza and, hopefully, also began to identify as writers.

The kids showing off their Fudge book and their new books

Guest blog post written by TRC Read-Aloud volunteer, Erin MacKay.

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

Emergency Read-Aloud kit

Sometimes a structured, well-planned Read-Aloud just isn't possible. Unexpected things happen; volunteers get sick or stuck in traffic. 

If the volunteer with materials for your fantastic pre-planned Read-Aloud doesn't arrive, don’t panic. In a pinch, all you really need to conduct a Read-Aloud are some kids, some books and some fun. The key is to use what's on hand at your site and to conduct activities that require no preparation and few or no supplies.

Books

Give-away books
Flip the regular schedule on its head and let kids choose their give-away books first. Then read those books with the kids in small groups. If children choose a chapter book, read a little bit of it to give them a taste of the story. Talk with the kids about why they chose a book, what they think will happen in the story and what they think of the characters or topic.

Books in the Reading Corner
Explore the books on the shelves in the Read-Aloud room. Talk with the kids about which books they like and which books they don’t. Talk about ways the kids could use the books (for fun reading, for doing a school assignment, to recommend to a friend who lives at the site, etc.). Then read a few of the books the kids are excited about.


On-the-fly activities


Use on-hand craft supplies

• Make posters to decorate the Reading Corner. They could show what the kids like about the Read-Alouds or their favorite books. 
• Draw self-portraits or a scene from a book they've read or heard.
• Put out a variety of craft supplies that you find on site, such as construction paper, stickers, markers and crayons, etc,. and let the kids have unstructured creative time. 

 
Play get-to-know-you games

• Alike and different — put people in pairs (volunteers and kids, kids and kids, etc.) and let them talk for a little bit.  Ask them to figure out some things they have in common (both like dogs, both born in July) and some things that are different (different favorite colors or foods, different music, different eye color). Then encourage each pair to share what they've discovered about their partner with the group.
• Two truths and a lie -- ask the kids to think up three things about themselves. Two should be true and one made up. (For example: I like coconut. I was born in the summer. I have two brothers.) Then each kid, in turn, tells the group the three things and the group has to guess which one is the lie.

Play word games

• Start with one word and see how many rhyming words the kids can list.
• Do Madlibs as a large group, or in small groups and share the results. There's even a free Madlibs app that you can download and use. Some of TRC's Read-Aloud sites have Madlibs in their binder.
  

Explore your surroundings

• Be scientists or detectives. If you can take the kids outside, look for bugs, birds, plants, types of cars, colors, shapes or any category of items. Inside, have them observe the room for shapes, patterns, small items. Help the kids to make a list or draw pictures of what they find.  
• Ask the kids to close their eyes and listen carefully — what do they hear? If there aren’t a lot of ambient noises, make some by moving a chair, shaking your keys, zipping a coat, opening a cabinet. Ask the kids to guess what the sounds are. You can also play an immense variety of sounds from the BBC stimulus sound library.
• Play I SPY or I HEAR (“I spy with my little eye something that is round.” Or “I hear with my little ear something that sounds squeaky.")

Get up and move

• Do yoga
• Have a dance party using music from your phone or Youtube.  If you have or can find a variety of genres of music, have the kids adapt their dancing to the type of music.
• Use a watch to time activities, such as standing on one leg, jumping jacks or wall sits.
• Do a unified movement activity, like Tootie-Ta or Bananas Unite. 

Play games

• Charades
• Telephone
• I Spy/I Hear
• I’m going on a picnic and I’m going to bring…
• Simon Says
• Musical Chairs
• Red Light, Green Light

The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray, but fun and meaningful experiences with books can still happen at your Read-Aloud, even without your theme materials. As long as kids are hearing books read aloud. talking with you about books and get to choose a book to keep, you've accomplished your goal. And the extra good news is that you already have a Read-Aloud planned for next time!

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

Moved By Books

For years, I tried to follow parenting advice that suggested setting up a homework area. Nearly everything I read advised creating a comfortable, well-lit and well-supplied desk or table and chair. So we set up several spots around the house that could work well. But every day I’d instead find my two boys sprawled on the floor with their books and homework.

I objected at first and my insistence on working at the desk resulted in many homework battles. Then I finally realized they’ve been sitting at a desk all day! Of course they want to stretch out and be in control of how to position their bodies for a change. Homework gets done around here much more smoothly now. You just have to watch where you step.

Not sitting is good for you. Educators and scientists have noted the benefits of movement for years. When you sit still for long periods, the blood and oxygen flow to your brain significantly slows down. This slows down learning too. Do you remember your teacher reading aloud to your class after recess? There was a reason she picked that time of day to read. Your blood was moving and you were ready to listen and learn.

There lots of ways you can marry movement with reading and learning experiences. Remember, the best experience with a book is interactive and fun! Lessen expectations of quiet, rapt focus and:

Energize! An energizer activity can wake up drowsy kids and reduce restlessness among others. Energizers are like warm ups and stretches in exercise. You might start a Read-Aloud session with a movement activity to get everyone focused and ready, you might need it during reading should listeners become restless or you simply might want to add movement to help reinforce or emphasize an idea or concept.

Your energizing movement activity could be something as simple as marching in place or freezing dancing or singing an action song. You can also connect it to themes or concepts in books you are reading, like having everyone pretend to swim when reading about the ocean.

If you need a demonstration of how quick movement activities work, Responsive Classroom has a great energizers video playlist. 

Move! Shift around to keep things interesting. Enhance spatial learning just by moving to a different spot in the room or having kids switch places to give kids a new spatial reference. This repositioning can be subtle—Let’s move to the window so we can have better light—or deliberate—Everyone switch places with the person sitting across from you—and is useful for transitioning from title to title or to other activities.

Read! You can take nearly any book and make it move. Kids can act out parts of the story as you read or do an action to imitate a character or repeated event. There are also tons of predictive and repetitive text titles that have things for kids to do built right in:

Jump, Frog, Jump! by Robert Kaplan. Kids jump like a frog every time you read “Jump, frog, jump!”

The Bridge Is Up! by Babs Bell. Whenever you repeat the refrain of "the bridge...is...UP!" kids throw their arms up in the air.

Tyson the Terrible by Diane and Christyan Fox. Have kids stomp their feet to mimic the sound of Tyson’s booming footsteps. 

The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper. Kids chug their arms like train wheels and join the refrain "I think I can! I think I can!"

Croaky Pokey! by Ethan Long. Everyone can sing and dance along!









Some movements are best saved for after you finish the book. It is great fun to zoom around the room like an airplane or pretend to inch along like a caterpillar, form a cocoon then burst forward as a beautiful butterfly. Or, after a first reading of a book, read it again and ask kids to come up with actions for words and characters for a second reading. For example, in Candace Fleming’s Muncha! Muncha! Muncha! kids might pretend to eat carrots and rub their satisfied tummies every time the rabbits enjoy the farmer’s veggies.



If the idea of having kids acts out words, dance along with the rhythm of a poem or imitate an animal sounds like it could get a little chaotic, well, it might! But making a child sit perfectly still will take more of your time and energy and create unwanted behavior problems. And if a child equates reading with something uncomfortable, like being forced to sit still, he’s not going to fall in love with books anytime soon.

So let’s get moving and reading!

Guest blog post by TRC Advisory Council member and Belle of the Book, Rachael Walker.

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

Join us for Of Wine & Words!

Each year, we invite our supporters and friends to join us at Of Wine & Words to raise funds and celebrate TRC’s accomplishments. If you have attended in the past, you know it's a great party. You can buy your tickets here!

Join us on Friday, April 24, 2015, at 7:00 p.m. at the Jones Day Rooftop Terrace. Jones Day is located near the Capitol and Union Station and its seventh-floor ballroom offers spectacular views of the Capitol. 

Doreen Gentzler, from the NBC4 News, returns for her third year as emcee. 

Drinks will flow from these great local providers:

• Arrowine
• Lost Rhino Brewing Company
• Dogfish Head Brewing Company
• Catoctin Creek Distillery

Food will be provided by the following restaurants:

• Bar Civita
• Catering by LT
• Dogfish Head Alehouse
• Dogwood Tavern
• Four Sisters Grill and Restaurant
• Lebanese Taverna
• Ragtime
• Rhodeside Bar and Grill
• SER Restaurant
• Village Sweet
• William Jeffrey's Tavern

As volunteers whose participation is, and always has been, central to our programs and history, we hope you'll come and enjoy this evening with us. Tickets for volunteers are $50. Volunteers can buy two tickets at this price. General admission tickets are $125. Purchase your tickets here.

If you can't join us at Of Wine & Words, consider supporting The Reading Connection during Spring2Action a online day of giving on April 22.  Help TRC reach our goal of raising $5,000 and benefit from a matching grant offered by the Mason Hirst Foundation.


This year Of Wine & Words is supported by these wonderful sponsors.

Platinum Sponsors: Berkeley Research Group, Jones Day and CBRE. 

Gold Sponsors: Acumen Solutions, Anna Epstein, Buckley/Sandler LLP, Greenfield/Belser Ltd., Hellerman Baretz Communications LLC, Hunton & Williams LLP, Integrated Systems Solutions Inc., Tradition Homes, Tradition Renovations and Westland Printers.

Silver Sponsors: 3wilders of McEnearney Associates Realtors, CEB, McGinn and Company, and the Northern Virginia Alumnae Club of Pi Beta Phi.

Bronze Sponsors: Arlington Home Interiors, BB&T, Jay E. Reiner, CPA, Jones & McIntyre PLLC, Jim Gibney of Lincoln Financial Group and Patty Harris of Washington Fine Properties LLC.

Media Sponsor: Arlington Magazine

This ain't your ninth-grade English class: How to do poetry with kids!

As a TRC blog bonus, we're posting a piece about sharing poetry at your Read-Aloud from March 2012.

April is National Poetry Month, providing TRC volunteers with a great excuse to delve into the world of children's poetry. 

In addition to being different than the norm and therefore more likely to spark interest, children's poems have the plus of being short and often spaced widely on the page. The language used is usually repetitive, rhyming and unusually vivid. This (and the fact that there are poems written on nearly every subject you can imagine!) will appeal to all of the kids at your Read-Aloud.


Shel Silverstein's poetry is tried and true. Pick up a copy of the Silverstein classics, A Light in the Attic, Where the Sidewalk Ends or Falling Up. Shel is one of the few authors for kids to merit a posthumous collection, Everything On It (2011). His poetry makes great use of off-kilter or made-up words, plays on word meanings and onomatopoeia.

Jack Prelutsky, the United States' first ever Children's Poet Laureate, is another favorite. Try The New Kid on the Block or Be Glad Your Nose Is on Your Face. 

For a sample of what you're in for, here's an excerpt from a poem of Prelutsky's entitled "As Soon as Fred Gets Out of Bed"

As soon as Fred gets out of bed, 
his underwear goes on his head. His mother laughs, "Don't put it there, a head's no place for underwear!" But near his ears, above his brains, is where Fred's underwear remains.

For older kids at your Read-Aloud, try Jabberwocky, illustrated by Christopher Myers. This urban sports spin on the Lewis Carroll classic will surely get the kids talking. Hip Hop Speaks to Children, edited by Nikki Giovanni, may appeal to the older crowd as well.  

Of course, Poetry Month lends itself as much to activities as it does to reading ideas. Before you start reading, ask the kids what they think a poem is -- you'll be surprised at how many people can't answer this question! 

Lists of rhyming words created by the Sullivan
House kids and volunteers.

Talk about rhyming and make a group list of words that rhyme. Use a white board, chalk board or flip chart. Start with a simple word and write down all the words that rhyme with it. Pick a few lines from your favorite kid's poem and clap your hands as you say them out loud to give everybody an idea of what meter is without even mentioning the term!

After reading as many poems as you and your audience can handle, put them to work writing their own! Have the kids work individually or in pairs to write poems on a subject that everybody knows about, like a favorite food or outdoor place. Here are some tips about writing poetry about gardens you could adapt for your Read-Aloud.

If the kids in your Read-Aloud are younger, write a poem or a story in a group. Pick a subject and have each child add one word that you write on a big sheet of paper in front of everyone. Jack Prelutsky's website offers more ideas for poetry activities, including How to Write a Funny Poem.

If you usually read storybooks at your Read-Alouds, the switch to poetry could be welcome! Take this month as an opportunity to shake things up and get silly with the combination of children's poetry and children.

Post by The Reading Connection intern Anna McCormally.


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

Unlocking the Rosetta Stone: How to Share Nonfiction with Kids

In a previous blog post, we opened up the wonderful world of nonfiction books for kids. Nonfiction is important because kids love it, it provides facts and it's plentiful.

Once you've selected some nonfiction books (using the tips and sample series provided in the previous post) you may want to think about how to read nonfiction aloud. It's different experience than reading a fictional picture book or a novel. With a little preparation, you can include nonfiction in your Read-Alouds with ease.



To share nonfiction with kids, think out loud to explain how nonfiction works.


With very young children, that could be as simple as pointing to a picture of a mother animal and its baby and then pointing to their names in the text as you say them. It's also a good idea to explain to young listeners that fiction books are made-up stories, but nonfiction books contain true information.

Mother and baby animal names "Deer and Fawn" and
"Koala bear and Joey" are in the top margin of this book,
I Love My Mommy Because... by Laurel Porter-Gaylord

With an older listener, say 7 years old or older, you could explain what a table of contents is (if the book you are reading has one) as you open the book. Demonstrate how to use it. Also explain features like the index or glossary.

Page through the book, pointing out graphs and sidebars. Explain that sometimes they contain important information not found in the text. Demonstrate how to use them.

Finally, explain concepts of comparison, sequence or providing examples. Show how sometimes the words the author chooses can signal that she is making a comparison, setting up a sequence or providing examples. Point that out when you see it in the text.



The Rosetta Stone, with text of the same
decree in three languages. provided the key
to understanding Ancient Egyptian  hieroglyphs.

By modeling how to read a nonfiction book, you are giving kids the Rosetta Stone--the secret to unlocking the knowledge they seek. Kids don’t know how to do this, but you can show them how if you point out design features, describe how you are looking at graphics, or model using tools like an appendix to find information. 












Ways help kids read nonfiction
By slowing down when you read nonfiction aloud, and spending time on the elements described above, you not only help kids understand what you are reading about, but also help them build their own skills to successfully navigate nonfiction text.

Before you share a nonfiction book with kids, see if you can find examples of some of the things listed below.

  

Vocabulary and Comprehension	Graphics and Illustrations	Design Features (table of contents, index, appendices etc.)
Teach new words in advance and define words while reading	Use visual thinking: Ask What do you see in this graphic? What makes you see that? What else does it show?	Use title and table of contents to get kids thinking about the topic and what they already know about it
Point out and define Signal and Academic words (compare contrast, sequence or examples of a concept)	Does this graphic give examples of what the words say or does it provide extra information?	Point out chapter titles, headings, subheadings and definitions
Find the main idea and point it out, then find supporting ideas and point them out	Where can I find the answer to my question? In the words? In the graphics? In my own head? By combining any of these?	Point out sidebars, insets and captions and explore the information they contain.
Ask questions to see if kids understand what you are reading along the way	Question the picture: Does it make sense? Is it accurate? Does it support the words? Could you make a better picture?	Search for answers to kids questions using the index and appendices

In addition to these elements, the format of the book will affect how you read it aloud. Some children's nonfiction reads like fiction, so you can read it straight through, like Groundhog Day! Other books are better suited to jumping around to answer kids' questions, reading bits and pieces here and there. Be sure to read through books first to get an idea of the best way share them with kids.

      

reads like fiction

reads like a reference book

             VS.

One way to ease into reading nonfiction with kids is to pair it with fiction books on the same topic. Here are two of our favorite books about ice cream.  

Joe runs a soft-serve stand in the summer, but no one knows where he goes in the winter. Rhyming text and double-page illustrations describe where people imagine him to be.








In which Elephant struggles with the dilemma:  Should he share his ice cream with Piggie?  The longer he dithers, the more his ice cream melts.  What to do?

For most kids, ice cream comes from the store.  By providing books about cows, milk, dairy farming and how ice cream is made, kids can learn about the different parts of the process.

Another way to get kids into nonfiction is to create a treasure hunt. Choose a variety of books on a single topic, from a series or by the same author.  Read through them to find a question or two that each can answer. Be sure the difficulty of each question is appropriate for the age of the children you are reading with. Write the questions on index cards, with the title of the book.  

What animal weighs the same as
a ping pong ball?
How long are the tentacles of
the sun jellyfish?
What is the strongest animal for
its size?

Which animals have dangerous kicks?
Which animal kills more people in Africa
than any other?

How many animals called
"Goliath" or "Pygmy" are
in this book?  What do the words
Goliath and pygmy mean?

In addition to specific questions for kids to find in the books, generate some general questions too:

• Which dangerous animal is your favorite and why?
• If you could be one of the animals in the book, which one would you like to be?
• Have you ever seen any of these animals?

When the kids choose a book they want to explore, work with them to find the answers to the questions. The questions you bring with the books are just a tool to get the kids exploring. If they start generating their own questions, follow their lead and look for those answers instead. 

Keep track of the answers to questions, so you can share them with the group at your Read-Aloud. Most kids like providing cool facts to their peers.
 

Kids are bound to get excited about all the things they can learn through a nonfiction book once they know how the books work. Whether you choose to do an all nonfiction Read-Aloud or just to include more nonfiction books related to your theme, be ready to follow the kids' lead, hunt for answers to their questions and provide more books for them to explore.

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