book stuff
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Ninety percent of participants in the Summer Reading Challenge feel they are better readers after taking part. Photograph: Ewa Ahlin/Getty Images/Johner Images As a charity CEO there are tough times, and good times. Right now, it's a good time, because despite the tough climate for libraries, support for our children's Summer Reading Challenge has held up strongly, with more libraries than ever before offering the Challenge to children to read six books from their local library over the summer holidays.
How schools can combat the summer holiday literacy dip | Teacher Network Blog | Guardian Professional
Books to inspire: what stories would you recommend to reluctant readers? Photograph: Adnan Abidi/REUTERS Earlier this week children's writer and former teacher Michael Morpurgo wrote a wonderful guest blog post for the Guardian Teacher Network arguing that we are failing to help boys find enjoyment in reading. It's a lovely read, but there's a particularly great snippet where he recalls the beginning of his love for books: "When I was a boy I didn't much like reading either, but it was my mother reading to me and my brother Pieter at bedtime that kept stories and books alive for me ...
Which books could teachers use to encourage reluctant readers? | Teacher Network Blog | Guardian Professional
Author and former teacher Michael Morpurgo: It's not about testing and reading schemes, but about loving stories and passing on that passion to our children Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian The findings of the National Literacy Trust's report into boys' reading are announced today. It reveals again that boys are falling behind in reading and that attitudes to reading between boys and girls are widening even further. Incredibly three out of four schools in the UK are concerned about boys' reading, and 60,000 boys aren't reaching the required levels of reading at 11.
Michael Morpurgo: We are failing too many boys in the enjoyment of reading | Teacher Network Blog | Guardian Professional
Brain Pickings - Part 4
By: Maria Popova “Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!” Celebrated Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl , born on March 26, 1905, remains best-known for his indispensable 1946 psychological memoir Man’s Search for Meaning ( public library ) — a meditation on what the gruesome experience of Auschwitz taught him about the primary purpose of life: the quest for meaning , which sustained those who survived. For Frankl, meaning came from three possible sources: purposeful work , love , and courage in the face of difficulty .by Maria Popova From farm life to molecular gastronomy, or what The Beatles have to do with the history of menu design. After the year’s best children’s books , art and design books , photography books , science books , and history books , the 2011 best-of series continues with a taste of the year’s most delectable food books, a literary lobster course of the finest variety. It’s not every day that one of the greatest food books of our time gets a makeover by one of the greatest illustrators of our time. Such is the case of this new edition of Michael Pollan’s classic compendium, Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual , illustrated by the great Maira Kalman ( ♥ ) — the timelessly sensible blueprint to a healthy relationship with food redone in Kalman’s characteristically colorful and child-like yet irreverent aesthetic.
The Best Food Books of 2011
Model letter about books and home reading for schools to adapt to their local needs Dear Parents and Carers We want to do everything we can to help your child to read and write – and we will.
Letter schools could send home to parents about reading
Top 20 Titles for Boys and Girls in Year 5
Top 20 Titles for Boys and Girls in Year 5 Difficulty level averages 4.1 (UK years 5.1), slightly higher than for last year and slightly above average. Boys and girls chose books that were of similar difficulty (girls had been higher in the previous year).
Miffy joins digital age with iPad app | Books
Miffy in her traditional print incarnation. Photograph: Martin Godwin Her distinctive silhouette is recognised around the world.
Dust Echoes: Ancient Stories, New Voices
Dust Echoes is a series of twelve beautifully animated dreamtime stories from Central Arnhem Land, telling stories of love, loyalty, duty to country and aboriginal custom and law. " Dust Echoes is one way that we are bringing everyone back to the same campfire - black and white. We are telling our stories to you in a way you can understand, to help you see, hear and know. And we are telling these stories to ourselves, so that we will always remember, with pride, who we are.Tim Rylands' Blog - to baldly go....... Using ICT to inspire
It is always good to hear other people reading a text with style. When it is the original author, that adds an extra bit of realism and excitement. Online Storytime , from Barnes and Noble , is a superb collection of children’s books, read aloud, often by the authors themselves. There are some very well known books and all feature the original illustrations and texts. A great way to bring shared texts alive. Stories can be embedded on a blog, or website, as I have done below.
8 November 2011 Last updated at 09:36 ET Parents and children reading together at the start of school makes a long impact, says study Children whose parents frequently read with them in their first year of school are still showing the benefit when they are 15, says an international study. An Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development analysis examined the long-term impact of parental support on literacy. Discounting social differences, the study found children with early support remained ahead in reading.
Reading to children has long impact, says OECD study
by Maria Popova Half a century of clever visual satire from pop culture to politics, or what Warhol had to do with Whitewater. Al Jaffee’ s magnificent anti-authoritarian fold-ins, gracing the inside covers of every MAD magazine since 1964, have been a longtime favorite around here.