Ways you can make a difference

by Linda B. Gambrell

There are a number of things that individual classroom teachers can do to encourage summer reading. In a study conducted with elementary–age students, Jimmy Kim found that reading four to five books during the summer was potentially enough to prevent a decline in reading achievement from spring to fall.

The key to overcoming summer reading loss is finding novel ways to get books into students’ hands during the summer break. Here are four suggestions for classroom teachers:

1. During “teacher read–aloud time,” share information about a variety of books. Students are more likely to read books they know something about. During the 15 to 20 minutes that you would read aloud from a single book, give a brief overview of multiple books instead, making sure you share a balance of narrative and informational texts reflecting a range of reading levels. Encourage students to make a list of the books they want to read over the summer. If a teacher shares 12 to 15 books a week during the final four weeks of school, students will be introduced to 50 or 60 books for potential summer reading.
2. Share “3–a–day.” If you can’t devote 15 to 20 minutes at a time to book sharing, try taking 5 minutes each day during the last month of school to share “3–a–day,” quickly sharing a narrative text, an informational text, and something else, such as a book of poetry. Using this approach, you could share up to 60 books with your students.
3. Distribute older books to students to take home for summer reading. When I was a classroom teacher, I carefully guarded my own library, making sure I could account for every book. As a consequence, the number of books in my classroom library grew substantially each year. I’ve since come to realize that students, like adults, gravitate toward newer titles. While there are some classics we will want to retain in our classroom libraries, perhaps it is time to weed out some of the older or never–touched books and give them to students for summer reading. If the books in your classroom library have been purchased with school funds, first obtain permission from your principal.Giving students books to take home on the last day of class is a powerful way to increase the likelihood of summer reading. You might want to duplicate a book plate that students can paste inside the front cover of the books they select. This book plate might say something like “Happy summer reading from your 5th–grade teacher, Mrs. Brown.” Books given to students by the teacher often become favorites and are highly likely to be read over the summer.
4. Explore other ways you and your school can promote access to books, particularly for students from low–socioeconomic families. Suggestions include keeping the school library open during the summer months, taking a class trip to the local library during the last month of school to ensure that every student has a library card, and working with local businesses to sponsor the purchase of books for each student to take home on the last day of class.

Reading opens doors to new worlds!

Read early, read aloud and read often – PicPocket Books always encourages children and families to follow this advice – whether you’re reading print books or books on mobile devices like the iPad or iPhone. Other proponents of literacy and reading also echo these recommendations to read early, read aloud and to read often.

The well-established Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) book distribution and reading motivation program has given over 300 million new books to children who might not otherwise have books to call their own.

Read Early, Read Aloud is also the goal of a new campaign sponsored by the First 5 Commissions of Southern California.

The Family Child Care Language and Literacy Project targets child care centers to promote more early reading opportunities in day-care type settings. Specialists modeled ways that care providers can work with children; they offered tips for reading to infants, toddlers and pre-schoolers; they encouraged providers to set up dramatic play areas where they can engage children in conversation; and they demonstrated ways to build youngsters’ comprehension skills and vocabulary. The 15-month project brought about a 20 percent increase in the number of times a day child-care providers read to children; and a 29 percent decrease in the number of hours the TV was on.

Let’s keep reading!

Reading can be one of the great pleasures of childhood that continues throughout a lifetime

1. Read with your child every day, whether it is from a print book or digital bookapp version!
2. Let your child choose the book – even if it is the same one over and over.
3. Set an example of reading – let your child see you reading for pleasure.
4. Go to the public library often.
5. When your child is older and has longer books assigned for school, read the same books yourself so you can discuss them together with your child.

Books aren’t the only vehicles for practicing reading skills. Board games and card games are another favorite way of mine when it comes to getting some reading practice in. Have you tried games like Apples to Apples,

A card and party game that's especially designed for beginning readers.

Clue or Pictionary with your kids? All of those games come with “Junior” versions especially designed for the younger set. Out of the Box games has a great selection of fun and educational games, including a lot of party games. In Letter Roll, players race to list words containing the three letters shown on the dice.

Letter Roll, published by Out Of The Box Games

Do you have any favorite family games that are both fun and educational? I’d love to hear about them!

One way to choose a picture book...

More and more, literature is being consumed on electronic devices like the Kindle, iPhones, and the soon-to-be-released iPad. How do we, as readers, authors and publishers preserve a love for reading and literature, and encourage more reading, engagement, and exposure to books in the face of these developments?

Kids grow up surrounded by digital media and technology. From a young age, kids are very curious about electronic gadgets. Why not capitalize on that fascination to grab their initial interest? Whether we’re talking print or digital books, reading is an active mental process: something to encourage at every opportunity.

Another way to choose a story...

I am, have always been, and expect that I always will be a huge fan of books. I think we are a long way off from digital books actually replacing print books, but I do believe that digital books will become more and more visible and popular as the tech savvy generations accept them as obvious options at home, in schools, libraries, in businesses and on the go. I believe it is important to make quality literature available on electronic devices because the fact is that they will find their way into kids’ hands.

What are some considerations in producing kids’ books for mobile devices? Because of the crucial marriage of text and illustrations in children’s books, the artistic rendering of a book in mobile format is particularly important.

Fidelity to original print version: PicPocket Books places a priority on fidelity to the original picture book. The beauty of many classic and contemporary picture books lies in their simplicity.
Interactivity: PicPocket Books has added some interactive audio hot spots to selected PicPocket Book titles like Oh, Crumps, Peterkin Meets a Star, Monster Trucks, Tractors, Rescue Vehicles, and Round Is A Mooncake.

"Peterkin Meets A Star," by Emilie Boon

Animations: The animations in PicPocket Books are subtle, like snow falling or stars twinkling. The intent is to encourage curiosity by adding elements of interactive discovery to some books. We are consciously NOT creating video games, but hope that PicPocket Books can offer a gentle alternative to games for parents who want to offer their children mobile digital books.

Reading a story book on a screen is a very different experience from playing a repetitive video game on the same screen. It has the same educational, mind-opening benefits as reading a traditional print book: it increases vocabulary, improves concentration and focus, and expands horizons. Reading helps children become engaged, rather than passive learners because books demand that kids to use their imagination to paint living mental pictures, rather than having images passively communicated to them through the picture on a television screen.

The technologies that are new to us are very intuitive to kids and will unquestioningly be a significant part of their lives for years to come. It’s important to introduce our children to quality and age-appropriate content on the screen, whether we’re talking mobile digital technology, desktop computers or other media.  Above all, digital books should not be viewed as a replacement for the valuable time parents can spend reading to their children, but as educational and culturally valuable alternatives to video games or movies, especially for families on-the-go.

Why do kids get a lot of screen time? Because they are really drawn to this kind of media. The technologies that are new to us are very intuitive to them and will be a significant part of their lives for years to come. I don’t see PicPocket Books as replacements for print books or the valuable time parents can spend reading to their children, but as educational and culturally valuable alternatives to video games or movies, especially for families on-the-go.

Many families are short on time and e-books can be read any time, any place. I believe that if reading picture books on the iPhone means that more families are reading together and more kids have more exposure to storybooks, then they are a great option for tech-savvy families of today.

The Halloween Kittens

The Halloween Kittens

Written & illustrated by Maggie Kneen

Lift the flaps and discover all sorts of sneaky fun with the mischievous kitten brothers Trick and Treat as they prepare for Halloween.
- from the Publisher

For more information, see Chronicle Books

Ivy + Bean

Ivy and Bean and the Ghost That Had to Go

By Annie Barrows

This book for beginning readers is another entertaining installment of the popular Ivy and Bean series, with a spooky twist.

For more information, see Chronicle Books

Ghosts In The House

Ghosts in the House

By Kazuno Kohara

This relatively new book (published just last year) is masterful in design. The optical illusion of the effervescient ghosts on black and electric orange pages will have you reaching out to touch them to check if they are actually textured.

It is also a great story, with a no-nonsense approach, and not scary at all. I mean if you had ghosts in your house you’d catch them and put them in the washing machine, right?

For more information, see Amazon.com

The Very Busy Spider

The Very Busy Spider

By Eric Carle

A simple, yet delightful story by classic author and illustrator Eric Carle. This books describes the day of an industious spider as she spins her web. The embossed details combined with Carle’s trademark collages make for an engaging tactile experience.

For more information, see Amazon.com.

Where The Wild Things Are

Where the Wild Things Are

By Maurice Sendak

Be sure to revisit this popular, classic picture book this Halloween. Get in the mood and roar your terrible roar, roll your terrible eyes, gnash your terrible teeth and show your terrible claws.

For more information, see Amazon.com

Too Many Pumpkins

Too Many Pumpkins

By Linda White

Pumpkins remind Rebecca, the elderly woman in this book of the Great Depression, when she and her family had nothing to eat but pumpkins. When a pumpkin smashes in her front yard, Rebecca covers it up and forgets it. However, the seeds from that forgotten pumpkin turn her yard into a pumpkin patch, and Rebecca is once again surrounded by pumpkins.

For more information, see Amazon.com

Child Of Faerie

Child of Faerie

By Jane Yolen

According to certain tales, faeries leave the underworld once a year to join in a faerie ring beneath the moonlight. On this magical night, a faerie boy meets a child of the earth and the two become friends forever. Luminous full-color paintings by award-winning artist Jane Dyer add to the magic.

Age Range: 5 to 8 years old

For more information, see Amazon.com

Moonlight

Moonlight: The Halloween Cat