Archive for May 04, 2008 - May 10, 2008

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker gently took the stage at the General Session Thursday during IRA’s 53rd Annual Convention in Atlanta, Georgia. She paused and smiled at the audience, saying “I feel like I’m in heaven—I feel like I’m in heaven with all these teachers.” Walker, who won the Pulitzer in 1983 for The Color Purple, praised teachers for what they do. “There is nothing more important in the world than to teach children to read,” she said.

She said that when was very small she was very curious about words, the magic of words on paper. One of her early experiences was watching her parents order things from the Sears Roebuck catalog. It was one of the books she learned to read from—especially, she smiled, the old catalog that went to the outhouse for recycling.

"Writing is an act of revelation," said award-winning author Christopher Paul Curtis at the Annual Awards Banquet on Wednesday evening during the IRA Annual Convention in Atlanta. Noting that he was born on Mother's Day in 1953, Curtis launched into a lively storytelling session about his childhood memories of his mother and how the theme of mothers resonates in his writing.

He recalled viewing his mother as a superhero. "I respected her and feared her," he said. He told one touching story of how his mother responded when his younger brother, David, was very ill. While his mother rocked David, she also comforted her other children by rubbing their heads with her hands--"the language of hands," he called it.

"What you read about in all my books is partly the result of two loving African-American parents," Curtis concluded, "mostly the love of my mother." He thanked the audience for allowing his voice and those of his characters to be heard. "Without you, they would be mostly silent," he said.

Fifth-grade teacher and bestselling author Rafe Esquith teaches in a Los Angeles school in which most of the students come from lives of poverty. Many speak English as a second language. Few go on to graduate high school, let alone college. Yet Esquith's alumni include many successful people, including a lawyer who helped establish a foundation to support Esquith's efforts in the classroom.

"How can I break the cycle of failure?" Esquith asked the audience at the Wednesday General Session of the IRA Annual Convention in Atlanta. "If my kids don't read well, there is no hope. If our kids don't love to read, there is no hope. We took all of the basals and we tossed them. We take all the books that have been banned and we read them."

Not only do Esquith's students read, each year they become involved in producing a Shakespeare play set to rock music. This year's class is beginning a production of As You Like It, and some of his students performed Shakespeare scenes set to Del Shannon's "My Little Runaway," Sting's "Fields of Gold," and the Rolling Stones' "She's So Cold." Other students performed the music, with each song earning a standing ovation from the appreciative crowd. The students concluded with an entertaining compilation of phrases from Shakespeare's plays that remain in use today.

Esquith read from a letter that a former student had written for her college application about how her experience in his class had shaped her. "Putting together those plays taught me about humility and teamwork," she wrote. "Who thought one could learn so much by being in a play?"

"What I fear for these kids is not drugs or gangs," Esquith concluded. "What I fear for these kids is being ordinary." All who attended this rousing session left realizing that here were a teacher and students that were indeed extraordinary.

Outside a small pharmacy in the dusty capital of Pakistan’s vast southwestern Balochistan Province, Zaitoon Bibi, 25, clutches two bottles of medicine. “One is for the cough and one is for fever. I hope I can remember which is which,” she says, looking worried.

Like thousands of other women across Pakistan, Zaitoon finds her inability to read a significant handicap in her daily life. The lettering on the bottle makes no sense to her and she must depend on help from neighbours to read the instructions on dosage.

In the low-income shanty town where Zaitoon and her husband, a labourer, live, literate neighbours are not easy to find. According to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), literacy still stands at only 50 percent in Pakistan. Read more from this report on the IRIN website.

A children’s story about a family of penguins with two fathers once again tops the list of library books the American public objects to the most.

“And Tango Makes Three,” released in 2005 and co-written by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, was the most “challenged” book in U.S. public schools and libraries for the second straight year, according to the American Library Association.

“The complaints are that young children will believe that homosexuality is a lifestyle that is acceptable. The people complaining, of course, don’t agree with that,” Judith Krug, director of the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, told The Associated Press on Tuesday. Read more about the controversy in the AP article in the International Herald Tribune online.

Andreas Schleicher, expert on international assessments, told attendees at the Tuesday General Session at IRA's Annual Convention in Atlanta that there is a common currency in today's global market--literacy.

Using charts, graphs, and other forms of data, Schleicher revealed how some countries, such as Poland, have dramatically increased the value of reading, while countries such as the United States have fallen behind. "The global talent pool is changing," said Schleicher, division head for the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and director of the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and other programs.

Schleicher noted that countries that continue to show progress in education share one thing in common--a devotion to reading. He showed data revealing that in such countries families promote literacy through having more books at home, more frequently visiting local libraries, and creating a more diverse reading environment at home. "Having diverse reading material at home is strongly connected to high student performance and reading engagement, which includes a positive attitude torward reading," he said.

A special evening event on Tuesday, May 6, during the International Reading Association's Annual Convention honored Legends of Urban Education. The event, which was initiated by IRA's Urban Diversity Initiatives Commission and organized by IRA, was held at the King Center in Atlanta.

In the College Section, the Reading Faculty of the Atlanta University Center was honored: Ruby L. Thompson, Gloria Mixon, Charles Davis (posthumously), Lynette Sain-Gaines (posthumously), Addie Mitchell, Mildred Freeman (posthumously), Isabella T. Jenkins, and Miriam H. Jellins. Over the past 40 years, the Atlanta University Center has prepared scores of teachers, and its faculty also instituted the Atlanta University Reading Conference—a unique celebration of researchers and writers of color.

Christine King Farris, Asa G. Hilliard III (posthumously), and Mary Eleanor Rhodes Hoover (posthumously) also were honored in the College Section. King Farris was honored for her lifetime of dedicated service in the preparation of students at Spelman College for teaching. Hilliard was cited for his advocacy for children, especially the poor and underserved. His many books include The Maroon Within Us: Selected Essays on African American Community Socialization. Hoover enjoyed a distinguished career at Howard University. She was a founder of the National Association of Black Reading and English Language Arts Educators and coeditor of the IRA book Teaching Reading to African American Learners: Perspectives and Practices.

In the Public School Section, Alonzo A. Crim, Benjamin Elijah Mays, and Gertrude Williams were honored posthumously. Crim was cited for his leadership and guidance of the Atlanta Public Schools through the turbulent times just after the Brown v. Board of Education decision in what became known as "The Atlanta Compromise." Mays was honored for his keen insight and fatherly wisdom, and specifically for his service as president of the Atlanta Board of Education. Williams founded and served as the first president of the Concerned Educators of Black Students Special Interest Group of IRA, and she actively promoted minority participation in IRA.

In the Public Section, Jean Young and Coretta Scott King were honored posthumously. Young, a former reading specialist, was cited for her support of numerous charities and causes and political and social issues. Throughout her career, she was devoted to literacy, education, and the mission of IRA. Scott King was honored for her lifelong dedication to civil and human rights, as well as for her establishment of the prestigious Coretta Scott King Book Awards, presented each year by the American Library Association to honor quality literature written and illustrated by people of color.

The International Reading Association acknowledged and thanked the Pearson Foundation for its generous support of this event, and representatives of the Foundation presented information about the Jumpstart initiative and Read for the Record event. For further information, visit the Jumpstart website.

Noted educator Alfred Tatum and award-winning author Walter Dean Myers shared the spotlight as Special Featured Speakers at the IRA Annual Convention on Tuesday afternoon, addressing issues involved in engaging adolescent African American males in reading. First, Tatum introduced Jonathan Thomas, a young man who spoke briefly but eloquently about his struggles to over come difficulties with reading.

Tatum focused his comments on the need to reconnect African American males with “textual lineages”—texts they find meaningful or significant or that affect their lives. “We have had a severing of textual lineages in our schools,” Tatum said. “Many students suffer an underexposure to texts they find meaningful.”

Speaking with passion, Tatum said, “We need to find a way to strengthen our ideology for educating African American males. It’s not just about students’ literacies. It’s about their lives.”

Next, Myers talked about his writing and his relationship with his readers. He said he writes books because “it’s the space I need to be in.” Likewise, he said, his readers are looking for a place to be.

“I’ve created places for these young people to be where they are comfortable,” he said. As an author, he said that he needs to give readers clues about why his books will speak to them and help extend them from where they are to other places they can be comfortable. He concluded by asking teachers to help bring meaningful literature into the classroom. The session ended with a question and answer session.

IRA President Linda Gambrell had a confession to make during Monday’s Opening General Session. She said she sometimes fears educators take the joy and pleasure out of reading when reading is taught as simply a subject in school, rather than a way of life.

The way to combat this is to promote pleasure reading in the classroom. “Pleasure reading plays an important role in literacy development,” she said. “It’s through reading we’re able to better understand ourselves, others, and the world around us.”

Known for her movie rolls in films such as Freaky Friday and A Fish Called Wanda, Jamie Lee Curtis welcomed attendees to IRA’s 53rd Annual Convention during Monday’s Opening General Session as a fan and author of children’s books. She added that she also has deep respect and admiration for educators and has long held the IRA in high regard. “I feel you are the gatekeepers of our children and the future, and you let me in the gate and I’m overwhelmed to be here,“ she said.

During her speech, Curtis explained how she—an actress—became an author of seven children’s books, which have collectively sold more than 5 million copies. “It has taken some time to get some street cred as a writer,” she said. “The truth is it’s something I’m very passionate about and take seriously. It’s not a just another ‘Hollywood-thing.’“

Educators and researchers seeking a full day of presentations, lectures, discussions, and dialogues with experts thronged to the Institutes held Sunday in the Georgia World Congress Center (GWCC) and at the Omni Hotel.

Among the 20 institutes offered, topics ranged from vocabulary instruction to literacy coaching to teacher quality and performance. Speakers ranged from leading researchers to former governors.

Adolescent literacy, still one of the “hot” topics in the 2008 survey of “What’s Hot” in the literacy field, drew about 100 educators to Institute 3, Adolescent Literacy: Policy Into Practices and Practices Into Policy-Strategies for Teaching Adolescent Learners, chaired by former IRA President Carol Santa. Bob Wise, former governor of West Virginia (2001-2005) and current president of the Alliance for Excellence in Education was the keynote speaker. Wise described the current crisis in middle and high school education, acknowledged minimally, he said, by the federal government in 2004, but which has since become an issue addressed in the Striving Readers’ Act, currently before Congress.

With the increasing need for higher-level literacy skills in what used to be “blue-collar” occupations, such as auto mechanics and mining, literacy is “critical to all of us,” he said. The United States must have a work force possessing not only basic literacy skills, but a high level of literacy to cope with the increasing demands of technology.

From pirates to puffins, from diners to dinosaurs, from snakes to skyscrapers—name a topic that interests children, and Gail Gibbons has probably written a book about it. Gibbons, one of the foremost authors and illustrators of children’s nonfiction books in the United States, entertained the capacity crowd at the Primary Literature Luncheon on Monday afternoon with stories about her life and her books.

Gibbons described her life-long love of art, recalling, “I was always drawing and painting in grade school.” She talked about various jobs she held in television, including set design work for Saturday Night Live and a children’s program called Take a Giant Step.

Gibbons talked about the development of her first children’s book, Willy and His Wheel Wagon, and noted that she is currently working on her 149th title. She also mentioned two books she is currently completing on the topics of corn and elephants.

Best-selling thriller author David Baldacci, who recently wrote a young-adult book series, shared real-life stories from his life as an author during Monday’s Special Featured Speaker presentation.

Baldacci, known for books such as Simple Genius and the recent Freddy and the French Fries young-adult series, has been a writer most of his life. “I started writing as a kid,” he said. “I loved to tell stories most of my life. When I was a kid, it was usually to get myself out of trouble.”

Even during his decade as a trial lawyer, Baldacci continued writing. He recalled a time while working for a difficult senior partner when he was told the difference between getting a verbal confirmation and oral confirmation. The criticism later came with a copy of the book How to Write Well. The next day, Baldacci’s first book, Absolute Power, was sold to a publisher after months of writing. Upon returning to the office, Baldacci couldn’t help but return the book to his critical boss.

“I held the book up and said, ‘I just want you to know how much this book has changed my life,’” he recalled.

A Washington Post article by Jay Mathews published on May 5 found that children are still reading classic novels. Children have welcomed the Harry Potter books in recent years like free ice cream in the cafeteria, but the largest survey ever of youthful reading in the United States revealed that none of J.K. Rowling’s phenomenally popular books has been able to dislodge the works of longtime favorites Dr. Seuss, E.B. White, Judy Blume, S.E. Hinton, and Harper Lee as the most read.

Books by the five well-known U.S. authors, plus lesser-known Laura Numeroff, Katherine Paterson, and Gary Paulsen, drew the most readers at every grade level in a study of 78.5 million books read by more than 3 million children who logged on to the Renaissance Learning Web site to take quizzes on books they read last year. Many works from Rowling’s Potter series turned up in the top 20, but other authors also ranked high and are likely to get more attention as a result. Read more about the survey in the Washington Post online.

The Ezra Jack Keats Foundation is annocuncing the publication on June 15 of the book Teach Anyone to Read: The No-Nonsense Guide. This is a new edition of Dr. Lillie Pope’s classic manual, originally titled Guidelines to Teaching Reading, which, over decades of use, and through the sale of hundreds of thousands of copies, proved that its methods are successful when used by teachers, teacher assistants, tutors, and lay people working with children, adults, teenagers, and ESL students.

Dr. Pope’s approach, based on solid theory supported by experience, includes instructions and sample materials, presented in easily understood and reassuring language. The No-Nonsense Guide is based on the conviction that with patience and the approach outlined in this book, the teacher and student will be successful.

This is the first book published by the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation. For more information on the book, visit the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation website.

“We can’t treat ‘literacy’ as a bounded problem to be solved,” said Catherine E. Snow of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the keynote speaker at the Reading Research 2008 conference, held on Saturday, May 3, in Atlanta, Georgia, just prior to the IRA Annual Convention. “Even if we could, that would be insufficient to ensure improved educational outcomes.”

Citing a wide range of research, Snow delivered a thought-provoking speech titled “Improving Literacy Outcomes: A Time to Act.” Her presentation included reasons for pessimism regarding literacy education, reasons for hope, a discussion of the scope of the challenge, and recommendations for action.

In addition to hearing Snow, attendees at Reading Research 2008 also had an opportunity to participate in smaller breakout sessions organized around four strands: reading instruction, assessment, adolescent literacy, and teacher quality.

Peter Afflerbach of the University of Maryland, one of the speakers in the assessment strand, spoke about “Assessment and Accountability: From Teachable Moments to Tests.” He spoke of the need for balance between testing and instruction, noting that in a thoughtful assessment system, formative and summative assessment work together. He also noted that “a test score tells us little or nothing of the means by which it was achieved.”

Julie Coiro of the University of Connecticut, one of the speakers in the adolescent strand, spoke about what she called a beginning research effort to understand and measure the differences between online and offline reading skills in young readers. Her research used “new literacies” approaches to studying individual students who were asked to perform a set of tasks using Internet websites to compile and evaluate information. Because some students who don’t read at a high level offline were able navigators online, she thinks there is something beyond offline reading skills that contributes to online reading comprehension and is working to pinpoint exactly what those skills or strategies may be.

Another highlight of Reading Research 2008 was the awards luncheon, at which several research awards were presented or announced. See the Wednesday issue of Convention Highlights for information about IRA award winners.

Also at the luncheon, Karen Douglas, director of the Status of Reading Instruction Institute, gave an overview of the Institute’s activities. The Institute has contracted with the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan to conduct the Description of Reading Instruction Study. The study will gather rigorous, objective information about how teachers teach reading in elementary classrooms.

Watch for Snow’s presentation (as well as others submitted during the IRA Annual Convention) to be posted in the convention area of the IRA website soon after the conference ends. Some presentation materials that were submitted prior to the convention are already posted.