READ.LEARN.GROW

Boys Reading: A Lesson From Cinderella? Alexandra Morrill

"...as early as second grade, fully 25 percent (of boys) had developed a negative attitude about reading." (Trelease, p.156). For two essential strategies to help encourage boys to read click here.

Let's Go Reading in the Car One

Sunday Book Review

Try some summer reading in the car with an audio book list provided by Judith Shulevitz.

Published: May 18, 2012

How did we human beings become the hypersocial creatures we are today?
The biologist E. O. Wilson credits fire, among other causes. In a recent history of human evolution, Wilson offers the following explanation: Fire was precious because it flushed animals out of the brush, then made it possible for people to cook them. Campfires had to be guarded, which made them like “nests” and made us feel safe enough to be “eusocial” or altruistic. Sounds plausible to me. More . .  .

Let's Go Reading In The Car Two

Try some summer reading in the car with a list provided by Judith Shulevitz.

Monday, May 21, 2012

Summer Audio Books

The New York Times Book Review section from May 20th featured an article by Judith Shulevitz, “Let’s Go Reading in the Car” that included the following list of recommended audiobooks to check out this summer. Read reviews for these titles with CLCD.

A Gift From Music

Robert (Max Tell) Stelmach When I was young, I hated and feared books. I have a short term memory problem, perhaps as a result of falling out of a two-story window when a baby.

Reaching For Gold

Too often teachers, parents, and students focus only on grades. Grades are important, absolutely, but they should never be one's primary or single goal. In terms of writing, why do we write? Or why should we write? Before answering, let me ask another question: why do we talk to one another? To communicate.

So, what should be our goal in writing? 

The Gift of Reading

At a very early age, it was obvious; Robert Anderson wasn’t good school material. His grade one teacher used a ping-pong pallet to coax him to read. His first of two grade two teachers used a yardstick with the same intension. Neither worked. Robert failed grade two and three. His grade eight principal told him, “Don’t waste your time. Liberal Arts is not for you.  You’ll never graduate from high school, let alone university.” Robert proved him wrong, but not until he jumped a few difficult hurdles.

Beyond Words

Teaching without Pressuring the Teacher to Teach or the Child to Learn Stories and songs are natural teachers and create natural paths to literacy. Stir a child’s imagination with stories, songs, and poems, and you feed the roots of their learning. Once memorized, a single sentence from a piece of prose, a song, or a poem, creates a model for many hundreds of sentences to come.

Failure a Means to Success

Michael Jordan “I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.” - Michael Jordan.

Recently on CBC Radio, I heard a discussion between the renowned Michael Enright, host of CBC’s Sunday Edition, and three prominent and concerned educators. The subject for discussion was whether or not the current policy of ‘not failing students’ is ruining their possibilities in later life.

Where would we be today without failure and the subsequent success that failure can lead to? Would we have the telephone, space travel, or modern medicine? Most great scientific and technical advancements have been made because of years and years of trial and error.