Archive for April 27, 2008 - May 03, 2008

Created under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001, the Reading First program provides assistance to states and districts in using research-based reading programs and instructional materials for students in kindergarten through third grade and in introducing related professional development and assessments. The program's purpose is to ensure that increased proportions of students read at or above grade level and master the essential components of early reading.

The law requires that an independent, rigorous evaluation of the program be conducted to determine if the program influences teaching practices, mastery of early reading components, and student reading comprehension. A new interim report by the Institute of Education Sciences presents the impacts of Reading First on classroom reading instruction and student reading comprehension during the 2004-2005 and 2005-2006 school years.

The evaluation found that Reading First did have positive, statistically significant impacts on the total class time spent on the five essential components of reading instruction promoted by the program. The study also found that, on average across the 18 study sites, Reading First did not have statistically significant impacts on student reading comprehension test scores in grades 1-3.

A final report on the impacts from 2004-2007 (three school years with Reading First funding) and on the relationships between changes in instructional practice and student reading comprehension is expected in late 2008.

To browse the Executive Summary of the interim report and to view, download, and print the report as a PDF file, please visit the following page on the IES website.

Creative teachers are rewarded each year by the Kids In Need Foundation with grants to fund exceptional classroom projects. The Teacher Grants program, open to all kindergarten through twelfth grade teachers in the United States, has awarded $1 million in grants since the program began in 1997.

Dan Legg, chair of the Teacher Grants Committee, said the committee “looks for high quality projects that convey information to students in new and interesting ways. We evaluate the grant requests according to certain criteria, but the proposals that make us want to be in the classrooms participating in those projects are the ones that are invariably funded.”

This year, more than $100,000 is available to award. Grant amounts are between $100 and $500. Applications for the 2008 Kids In Need Teacher Grants will be available after July 15 and can be submitted online between July 15 and September 30 on the Kids in Need website.

The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards, which honor young people for outstanding volunteer service to their communities, will be broadcast live on the web from Washington, D.C., on May 5 at 12:45pm Eastern time.

Created in 1995 by Prudential Financial in partnership with the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP), the awards constitute the United States’ largest youth recognition program based solely on volunteering. Over the past 13 years, the program honored more than 80,000 young volunteers at the local, state, and national level. To reigster for the webcast, visit the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards website.

The University of Texas at San Antonio's (UTSA) reading preparation program has been named as the first recipient of the International Reading Association's Certificate of Distinction. The International Reading Association (IRA) introduced this new program in fall of 2007 to honor outstanding reading preparation of elementary and secondary teachers. Four programs participated in the pilot.

UTSA will be formally recognized at a special session on Wednesday, May 7, during the IRA Annual Convention in Atlanta, Georgia. The session will be held from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. in Room C210 of the Georgia World Congress Center.

Ultimately, by establishing clear standards of excellence for programs that prepare teachers to teach reading in the classroom and by recognizing exemplary programs, IRA's Certificate of Distinction has the potential to have a major impact in the field of reading education.

Members of IRA's Quality Undergraduate Elementary & Secondary Teacher Education in Reading (QUESTER) Task Force reviewed written applications and made three-day site visits. The task force examined the programs for specific elements and sub-elements in the areas of Content, Faculty and Teaching, Apprenticeships, Field Experiences, Practica, Diversity, Candidate and Program Assessment, Governance, Resources, and Vision.

Both reviewers and the UTSA program participants found the clearly defined rubrics helpful. The reviewers also visited schools in which students were teaching. For UTSA staff, preparing the written report, gathering artifacts, and participating in the site visit was "extremely insightful," said faculty member Misty Sailors.

The UTSA is a fast-growing university with close to 30,000 students. The education program serves 1,600 students and is the largest producer of teaching degrees for Hispanics in the United States. All education majors take 12 hours of literacy courses. One unique aspect of the program is the Reading Place/Plaza de Lectura at UTSA's downtown campus, which provides literacy tutorials to inner-city children and offers opportunities for teacher candidates to work with struggling readers.

To have a reading preparation program considered for a Certificate of Distinction, contact IRA’s Gail Keating at 302-731-1600, x226 or gkeating@reading.org. You can also visit the following page on the IRA website. The application deadline is August 15, 2008.

A simple edict that Aboriginal children read and write for two hours every morning is finally reducing appalling levels of literacy in remote parts of Australia.

The literacy of children at Kiwirrkurra in the Gibson Desert, 700 km west of Alice Springs, was so poor four years ago that only a handful had the reading and writing skills to attempt the West Australian Government’s annual written literacy exam for all students in Years 3, 5 and 7. Of those who sat the test, not one met the national benchmarks. In the remote township of 150 people, only 15 adults can read and write English.

But the students are now making small but significant gains after the West Australian Government’s Aboriginal literacy strategy, rolled out to 42 remote schools in 2006, made it compulsory for teachers to devote the first two hours of every school day to guided reading, guided writing and word games. Read the article in The Australian online.

 A federal judge has dismissed a closely watched challenge to President Bush’s signature education law, No Child Left Behind (NCLB), ruling that the State of Connecticut failed to prove that federal officials had forced it to spend its own money to comply with the law’s requirements. NCLB contains language known as the unfunded mandates provision that says no state or school district can be forced to spend its money on expenses the federal government has not covered.

In 2005, Connecticut accused Education Secretary Margaret Spellings of violating that prohibition in directives governing the testing of students with limited English proficiency or disabilities. In a ruling issued late Monday, April 28, 2008, Judge Mark R. Kravitz of Federal District Court in New Haven wrote that although the state had provided estimates of what it would cost to comply with those testing guidelines, “nowhere did it state that the federal funding was insufficient to cover those costs.” Read the article in The New York Times online.

On April 24, Toyota announced that four Oakland elementary schools will be among the newest sites for its Toyota Family Literacy Program (TFLP). TFLP,
the first nationwide program of its kind to focus on the needs of Hispanic and other immigrant families, is coordinated by the National Center for Family Literacy (NCFL), the country’s leading advocate for family literacy.

TFLP, which got its start in 2003 and is now functioning in 20 cities across the United States, aims to increase basic language and literacy skills among Hispanic and other immigrant families, and provide parents with the skills they need to help their children succeed in school. The program specifically serves children in kindergarten to third grade and their parents. TFLP is unique in that it incorporates NCFL’s multicultural family literacy model, which combines key components including: ESL courses, children’s education, parenting education, Parent and Child Together (PACT) activities, and computer-literacy instruction. Since its inception, Toyota’s commitment to the program exceeds US$35 million. Read more about TFLP on the Toyota website.

Kids Can Publish University is an organization that promotes literacy and a love for writing and illustrating through free monthly contests that reward winners with a published byline.

Children can enter writing or drawing assignments they’ve already done for their classrooms or create something new for the contest, and they can enter as often as they wish. Each month, Kids Can Publish selects the best pieces in each age divisions to publish online.

For more information on how children can enter the contest, visit the Kids Can Publish website.

These days the book business has an aura of crisis and gloom, while visits to libraries are surging. Over two billion items are checked out annually, and nearly all libraries offer free Internet access along with many of the amenities of a bookstore.

Truth be told, the book business has always had an aura of crisis and gloom. It’s the Eeyore of industries. But lately, it’s become clear that the book industry really does need to be saved: from itself.

It might start by looking more closely at what libraries do. After all, libraries know that developing a strong book culture involves making it easy for people to discover and sample new books, to acquire books quickly even if they aren’t on the local library’s shelves, and to share their reading experiences with others. One of the most powerful reasons for choosing a book is having another reader recommend it. In short, sharing isn’t the problem. It’s the solution.

Read more of Barbara Fister’s commentary in Library Journal online.

Every Monday afternoon, Sioux City (Iowa) Community School students get an early out for the day while their teachers go back to class.

“Our teachers have had some form of professional development for years,” said the district’s special education and professional development coordinator Janet Rohmiller, “but it’s only been in the past two years that we've been doing it on a weekly basis.”

Rohmiller said these weekly sessions allow educators to learn successful teaching techniques from proven experts. “In the past, we’d call professional development sessions ‘sit and get it.’ The sessions would be scheduled erratically and the teachers would try their best to absorb what they’re listening to,” she said. “You sat through a lecture and hoped you got the gist of it.” Read the article in The Sioux City Journal online.

If you live in Wichita Falls, Kansas, three little dogs want desperately to visit your child’s school.

They’ve come all the way from California with their owner Michelle Nester, who moved to Wichita Falls last month. In the process, these three long-haired Chihuahuas left behind the jobs that they did so well and loved so much in Apple Valley schools: helping children read.

They left behind scores of little children they knew, who would line up for a chance to read to them, who would set their tails wagging at the sight of them. The three dogs—Denver, Mariposa and Mallory—are all certified therapy dogs, trained to sit quietly in the laps of children who need extra practice in reading. Read more in The Times-Record News online.