Archive for July 29, 2007 - August 04, 2007

According to a study by researchers at Ball State University, the use of wireless handheld reading devices, or eBooks, in classrooms can boost students' interest in reading. As reported by Laura Devaney in eSchool News Online, the study results suggest that many elementary students who have been ambivalent toward reading in the past have displayed enthusiasm for reading with the devices. For further information, read the full article.

It wasn't so very long ago that many pundits were saying that technology would render libraries obsolete. But library use is booming in Massachusetts, according to an article by Eric Moskowitz of the Boston Globe appearing on Boston.com.

Statewide, the article says, total circulation rose 25 percent from 1996 through 2006, and interlibrary loans grew nearly 400 percent, according to statistics from the state Board of Library Commissioners. Area directors say they have also seen growth in use of public computers and attendance at library programs. For further details, read the full article.

Reading the written word may be mightier than lead poisoning, researchers in Baltimore reported. They found that avid reading, which stimulated cognitive reserve, helped fend off the cognition-draining effects of lead exposure in a group of smelter workers. Read more about this research in this article from the website MedPage Today.

A federal judge affirmed Texas’ bilingual education programs for its 712,000 students with limited English skills, rejecting arguments by leading Hispanic groups that those students are receiving an inferior education in the public schools. The court concluded that the Texas Education Agency’s education theory is sound, and its implementation and enforcement of the bilingual/ESL program is adequate under federal law. Read more about the ruling in this article from The Dallas Morning News.

Reading specialists have often pitted phonics against holistic word recognition and whole language approaches in the war over how to teach children to read. However, a new study by researchers at New York University shows that the three reading processes do not conflict, but, rather, work together to determine speed. Read more about this research in this article from ScienceDaily.

A new study in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine suggests that elderly people who can’t navigate health information are at greater risk of cardiovascular death than those who are able to comprehend prescription bottles, doctor appointment slips, and hospital forms.

“People are dying because they’re not understanding health information,” said Dr. David Baker, the study’s lead author. “There are a number of factors, but inadequate literacy is probably acting like a lens, focusing all the other factors in.”

 Since the enactment of the No Child Left Behind law, test-score improvement among 4th graders in 12 states has fallen off in reading and slowed in math, according to a new study. The paper also cites National Assessment of Educational Progress scores reflecting a virtual halt to progress in closing racial achievement gaps in reading since the federal law was signed in 2002. Read more about the study in this article from Education Week.

Spending on English instruction must be quadrupled to more than $4 billion a year for the next six years to make legal and illegal adult immigrants proficient in skills crucial to their assimilation and the economic future of a country whose population is increasingly foreign-born, a new national report says. In the first nationwide study of its kind, the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute estimates that an additional $200 million a year is needed to improve legal immigrants’ English skills enough for them to pass a citizenship test and “fully participate in the country’s civic life.“ An additional $2.9 billion a year is required for illegal immigrants to meet those standards, the report says. Read more about the report in this article from The Washington Post.

Principal James Lujan’s secret to success started small, with eight parents who wanted to learn English. Word got around among the Spanish speakers at Eugene Field Elementary School that the principal was the best English teacher in the South Valley neighborhood. Refusing to take money for the lessons, Lujan told the grateful parents they could repay his efforts by spending an hour a night with their children on homeweork. Now, Eugene Field is among 11 district schools that made adequate yearly progress last year after two years of failing to reach the federally mandated goals for student achievement. Read more of this article from The Albuquerque Tribune.

 IRA President Linda Gambrell, President-elect Barbara J. Walker, and Executive Director Alan Farstrup describe as “outstanding” the planning and organization for the 22nd World Congress on Reading, which will take place July 28 to 31, 2008 in San Jose, Costa Rica. The three were visiting Costa Rica to assist in the preparation for next year’s World Congress and received press coverage in La Nacion, a leading newspaper in that country. Gambrell explained that given the great cultural complexity of the world “our students need to have high levels of reading and writing” and teachers who are prepared to teach them well. Read an English translation of that article.

Lea acerca del 22° Congreso Mundial de Lectura en este artículo que publicó el periòdico La Naciòn de San José, Costa Rica.

Sipping coffee and flipping through a paperback, Al-Ahram columnist Dina Ezzat considers the new book markets in Cairo in light of the government’s new “Reading for All” campaign.

The city is well dotted with signs promoting the campaign. State-run TV and radio stations are urging the old and young to get into the habit of reading. The government is producing millions of copies of a wide range of titles at fairly decent prices, and the bookstore shelves are full. The resources are all in place. Now, can the Egyptian public be persuaded to return to reading? Read Ezzat’s essay in Al-Ahram Weekly online.

For the first time in modern history, most of the babies being born in California are Latino, according to an analysis of state birth records through 2005. Population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau also show that for the first time in 2004 more than half of the children under age 5 in California are Latino. Judy Bugarin, a 40-year veteran of early childhood education and director of the Parkway Child Development Programs for Santa Clara County, feels responsible for better serving a student population that is now about 80 percent Latino. “Our goal is that they become fluent in English by the time they’re ready for kindergarten,” Bugarin said. “That’s where we’re trying to close the achievement gap, by supporting English so they can do well in school.” Read more of this article from the San Jose Mercury News.

Deleon Fuller is learning how to serve aces on the tennis court while sharpening his reading skills so he can ace his classes this coming school year. Fuller, 11, is among the 4,000 or so Boston kids, ages seven to 15, who are taking part in Tenacity’s two-month Summer Tennis and Reading Program. Read more about the program in this article from the Boston Herald.

A sub-regional conference in support of literacy will take place in Beijing (China) on July 31 and August 1. The second in a series of regional conferences organized by UNESCO to promote global literacy, the Beijing conference will focus on the situation in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific. Although the total number of people who can read and write in this part of the world is high — 91.7% — a considerable gender gap persists, with women making up 70% of the illiterate population. The situation also varies significantly from one country to another. Details may be found at the UNESCO News Services website.

 The chairman of the House education committee, an original architect of the federal No Child Left Behind law, said Monday that he wanted to change the law so that annual reading and math tests would not be the sole measure of school performance, but that other indicators like high school graduation rates and test scores in other subjects would also be taken into account. “Our legislation will continue to place strong emphasis on reading and math skills,” the chairman, Representative George Miller, Democrat of California, said at the National Press Club. “But it will allow states to use more than their reading and math test results to determine how well schools and students are doing.” Read more about Miller’s speech in this article from The New York Times.

Rumors to the contrary notwithstanding, the 5th Pan-African Reading for All conference will be held as scheduled, August 6–10, 2007, at the University of Ghana, Legon Campus, Accra, Ghana. The theme of the conference is “Literacy for Human Liberation.”

The registration fee for conferees from non–African countries is US$200.00. Registration for conferees from African countries is US$150.00. All registration fees should be paid on arrival at the conference centre, the Institute of Adult Education on the Legon Campus. A detailed conference program will be available on site.

For more information, including a list of nearby hotels, download the conference information sheet, or contact Professor Kate Adoo-Adeku at kadeku2006@yahoo.com.

The British Department for International Development (DFID) says the world will need US$110 billion to meet the United Nations target of getting all children into primary school by 2015. The department in a report published in its quarterly magazine Development, said the UN has a responsibility to these children, and pointed out that to attain this key Millennium Development Goal (MDG), the rich countries would need to provide US$11 billion in new aid every year for a decade. The magazine said at the current rate of progress, 75 countries—mainly in sub-Saharan Africa—would not achieve the goal. Read the article at allAfrica.com.

 Congress has delayed any significant action on the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act until it returns from its summer recess after Labor Day. Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, announced that his committee would not consider an NCLB bill before lawmakers take their August break. Read more of this article from Education Week.

Summer can be the enemy of the schoolteacher: Students forget their math. They stop reading. And in the case of those with limited English skills, they lose their newly acquired words. So at 22 elementary schools in the poorest enclaves of Montgomery County, Maryland, summer ended early. The program, called Extended Learning Opportunities—Summer Adventures in Learning, is considered a national model for stemming the summer brain drain. Students who faithfully attended the first summer session in 2002 tested better in reading and math after summer school than before, according to research. Read more of this article from The Washington Post.

Junie B. Jones is the hero of a popular Random House early reading series that has divided parents since it was introduced 15 years ago. With more than 43 million copies in print and a stage show touring the country, the series has its share of die-hard fans and is required summer reading at many elementary schools. But more than a few parents have taken issue with Junie B., as she is called. Their disagreement is a pint-size version of the lingering education battle between advocates of phonics, who believe children should be taught proper spelling and grammar from the outset, and those who favor whole language, a literacy method that accepts misspellings and other errors as long as children are engaged in reading and writing. Read more about the Junie B. debate in this article from The New York Times.

Most parents know that a good bedtime story can lull a child to sleep. And parents have long assumed that reading books with their child improves that child’s language skills and intellectual development. So it is surprising that, until recently, there was not much real proof of the widely held notion that joint book reading improves children’s communication skills. Now, a University of Kansas researcher has added to that evidence, showing that joint book reading is indeed associated with a child’s use of language and giving new details about how the variety of books and context of joint reading impacts linguistic development. Read more about this research in this article from the Kansas City infoZine website.