Share a Story 2012: Writing @ Reading - Day 4

This is it ... your last chance to submit your entry for our Writing @ Reading contest. Noon, Pacific time! It's a win-win ...

• You share a personal passion for literacy and reading.
• You win a set of RIF's 2012 Multicultural Children's Book set for your local school or public library.

Today's theme is bigger than the book. We're rounding out our discussions beyond the printed word and look at the culture of literacy with the ideas of non-book ideas, social reading, and modern formats.

• How do you find new books to add to your to-be-read (TBR) list? (e.g., Goodreads, Twitter, Book clubs, Friends, browsing the library shelves)
• What unique / beyond the usual things do you have in your literacy tool belt to engage young readers?
•  Do you have three examples you can add to our Yes! You are a reader list?

Entries
1. Where do we find our new books? by Eric VonRaepenbush [note: posted too late to be entered in the giveaway]

Our goal with the questions is to reach new places for sharing our reading and literacy experiences and ideas, and we'd love to include your voice, too. Here's how it works ...

1. Select the question(s) that resonates with you.
2. Find an old post or write a new one that answers the question. [Be sure to grab a Share a Story button from the sidebar to include in your new post!]
3. Add your post as a comment.
4. (optional) Tweet about your post and include @ShareaStory or the #SAS-12 hashtag.

We'll be adding links for the questions all week, so there's no rush to have an answer the same day a question is posted ... unless you are entering the contest to receive the RIF 2012 Multicultural Books Collection for your school or public library.

All entries must be posted by Noon Eastern Standard Time, Thursday, 8 March 2012 to be entered in our random drawing. Winners announced Friday, 9 March 2012.

[image credit: Share a Story Logo created by author/illustrator Elizabeth Dulemba.]

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Pic Pocket Books: Combining Classic Stories with Modern Life

Today we'd like to say thank you to Lynette Mattke and her company PicPocket Books. This is Day 4 of Share a Story-Shape a Future, and the topic of the day is combining the old and new ...

Lynette knows all about that. She's a mom of three and is an iPhone APP developer. She's stood in line with a cranky kid working desperately to engage them with *something* while she paid for groceries. As Lynette explains:

I want to say very clearly that we do NOT see our picture book applications for the iPhone as replacements for print books, but rather as an option for parents and children who are away from their collection of books and who would like to read or look at picture books as an alternative to movies and video games  - in the car, on airplanes, waiting at the doctor's office, etc.

For Share a Story ~ Shape a Future, Lynette has donated five (5) codes for eBooks from the PicPocket Books collection for downloading to an iPhone or iPod touch. This YouTube video with the What a Pest story helps you see how it works.



To enter this giveaway, add a comment with your suggestion on ways to ENGAGE kids with eBooks. We will use a random number generator to draw the winners' names. Deadline: 5PM Pacific Time Friday, 12 March 2010.

The Fine Print

1. The unlock codes must be used within 4 weeks of winning.
2. The code is for one download only.
3. You must own an iPhone or iPod touch ... you can not delegate the code to any other person.
3. The giveaway is open to US residents only. Sorry. It's the way the Apple Store works.

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Reading is Fundamental: Sharing Multicultural Books

Thank you! Reading is Fundamental

As part of Share a Story ~ Shape a Future, Reading is Fundamental is donating two full sets of its Multicultural book collection for our It Takes a Village giveaways! There are 50 books in each set. Wow! Thank you! muchas gracias, merci beaucoup, danka shen ... there aren't enough ways to say thank you!

You can read the complete list of titles here (pdf), or you can watch the slideshow here.  We'll also keep a widget with the slideshow over on the right-hand side during the event.








Our theme for Share a Story 2010 is "It takes a village," and we wanted our giveaways toc benefit as many communities and readers as possible. Given the budget crunches schools and libraries are facing, it seems only logical that they be the beneficiaries of these collections. The Giveaway is tied to our Writing on Reading initiative, and here is how it will work.

1. Select one of the Writing on Reading questions.
2. Put together your thoughts and post them on your blog.
3. Come back to the daily Writing on Reading post and add your link to Inlinkz box AND add a comment with the name of the school or public library you would like to see receive the books.

Each day, RIF staff will be reading your posts and will select their favorite posts.They will pick three from Monday and Tuesday and three from Wednesday and Thursday. We'll announce the first three here on Wednesday and the next three Friday morning.

On Friday morning  (12 March 2010)I will have a ballot with the six finalists and open the voting. We will use a Survey Monkey poll to collect votes of the "fan favorite" of the six. The voting will remain open until 12:00 noon, (EST) on Saturday, 13 March 2010. The two bloggers/writers with the most votes will be the winners. The winners will be announced on Monday, 15 March 2010 on the Share a Story blog.

Here  is the fine print:

1. There is only one entry per person. RIF staff will select only one post per blogger. If you are a finalist from the Monday/Tuesday posts, additional posts on Wednesday/Thursday will not be considered for the contest.
2. Guest or ghost posts will not be eligible; neither will be additional posts published by the same author on more than one blog.
3. Communities in the United States North America are eligible. Updated 11 March 2010 at 8:47pm EST.

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Just Six Months Until Share a Story 2010

I don't know what made me flip the calendar and look at the dates ... but we're just under six months away until Share a Story-Shape a Future 2010. Our theme is going to be It Takes a Village to Raise a Reader. I'm already starting to get excited about how the week is shaping up, but for now it's in semi-hibernation. That doesn't mean we haven't been busy; and this is a September I won't soon forget. Here's why ...

We have a new Literacy and Reading Wiki. Over the summer, Susan Stephenson of The Book Chook and I pulled the information from last year's Share a Story-Shape a Future event and started adding new content as we found it. What we now have is a dynamic resource filled with links, videos, and lists of ideas for engaging kids with books, exploring your library, and helping children learn to read.

Childrens and Young Adult Bloggers Literary Awards. The panels have been formed and the nominations start next week. This first round of the Cybils process is always exciting as we start sharing some of our favorite books to read with kids. I am once again honored to be part of the panel for Easy Readers and Short Chapter Books.


Several weeks ago, Nesting.com asked me to be its Knowledge Nest expert for Children's Books. Nesting.com is a multifaceted tool designed to help parents manage their busy lives. It is part social network, part reference, tool, and part family organizer. I'll be writing articles related to helping families engage kids (0 to 13) with books.

Last week, I was invited - along with Susan Thomsen of Chicken Spaghetti - to be a guest blogger for Booklights, the PBS Parents blog that is part of the organization's Raising Readers initiative. Needless to say, I am honored to have the opportunity to "share ideas for helping developing readers; ways to use classroom strategies at home; tips for exploring (or exploiting) the library; and a book recommendation or two."

We hope you have the opportunity to take advantage of these resources. Although they offer different things, they all have a singular purpose: encouraging you to read with your children.

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Decoding, Deciphering, and Reading: Helping Parents Understand Literacy Vocab

This morning on her Parents and Children Reading Together blog, Cathy Miller has a handy list of literacy terms with family-friendly definitions. 

Some terms, like sight words, you may recognize, but others are a little more technical. That said, they are words you're likely to hear during parent-teacher conferences and see when reading the results of standardized tests for reading. As you read Cathy's list, it becomes clear that some words make the concepts sound harder than they are ... try metacognition for example: thinking about how you think. C'mon.

Cathy is doing a radio show with award-winning author Stacey Kannenberg that will be available on the Get Ready to Learn Mom website. She'll also be continuing her series about ways to help independent readers at Parents and Children Reading Together.

Disclosure notice: Cathy serves as a member of the Reading Tub Board of Directors. She offers counsel and is a sounding board for me in framing literacy programs, building outreach, and educating families about reading with kids.

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Literacy Lava: Great Reading Just Flows Naturally

This is a cross-post with Scrub-a-Dub-Tub blog.

It's hard to believe that it's already been three months since the first issue of Literacy Lava hit the virtual newsstands. In my first post, I wondered aloud how Susan Stephenson stopped time. Now, it seems that time is flying ... the second issue of Literacy Lava is about to arrive.

While I may be able to take the heat, my refrigerator apparently found the kitchen too hot! So while I was dealing with all that yesterday, I fell behind Susan and the Literacy Lava crew in telling you about the upcoming edition. That's okay ... we still have a few more days until the new copy arrives on 1 September 2009.

Like the first issue, you will find lots of practical, fun ideas for engaging kids with books and raising readers. One of the things I love about the magazine - and particularly this month's collection of articles - is that there are lots of ideas that aren't just about sitting and reading a book. I don't want to give anything away, so for now, I'll let you *hear* what Susan has to say about the new edition.

Making literacy part of our everyday family life is often just a matter of remembering. We need to make sure our kids see that reading, writing, and communicating are important to us, and give them lots of opportunities to participate too.

Literacy Lava 2 is a free magazine that will bring you ideas: for motivating reluctant readers, for literacy on the go, for developing the imagination muscle, for linking math and literacy, for having a pirate party and a book picnic, for rhymes, games, activities and more!

Brought to you by bloggers and writers who are passionate about children's literature and literacy, Literacy Lava 2 is erupting with no- or low-cost activities parents can do with kids to promote literacy.

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Hot Summer Reading!

The "hottest" read of the summer is now here ... Literacy Lava is now on your (virtual) newsstand.

In this edition ...
Tips for Reading Aloud

When Do I Start Reading Aloud?
Garden of Reading
Bedtime Stories Grow Up
Literacy Through Play
Putting the Ate into CreAte
Reluctant Reader vs Despondent Mom
Online Extras and an Activity Page

Literacy Lava is the brainchild of Share a Story-Shape a Future contributor (and tireless literacy advocate) Susan Stephenson (The Book Chook),. Several months ago, she asked several of us book-blogger types if we would be interested in collaborating on an easy-to-use eZine for parents. We all said YES! In this inaugural edition, you'll find articles from Valerie Baartz The Almost Librarian, Dawn Morris from Moms Inspire Learning, Kim Chatel of Chatel Village; Amy from Literacy Launchpad, and Terry Doherty from The Reading Tub.

We would love to have your feedback. Have an idea for something you'd like us to talk about? Feel free to leave a comment here or stop by The Book Chook to chat with Editor-in-Chief Susan.

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Literacy & Reading

Last week, we talked about some of the Reading Tips we gathered during Share a Story-Shape a Future 2009. This week, I’ve rounded up the resources and ideas related to reading aloud.

Reading aloud is crucial to our development as readers and communicators. As Donalyn Miller pointed out in her post, you’re never to old to enjoy having a story read aloud. Still not sure? Then visit The Reading Zone, where you can follow along as Sarah shares the reactions and excitement of her middle school students.

These are posts from the week, as well as links and posts mentioned in the comments. Sarah wrote a post in early April about her process for reading aloud. Although it wasn’t directly part of Share a Story, it goes to the heart of what we hope this event will do. So we’ve included it below.

Understanding Read Aloud with Young Children

• Colerin Colorado offers one-page Reading Tip Sheets for parents who want to raise their kids to be successful readers. “Although we've divided these tips by age, many of them can be used with children at various ages and stages — we encourage you to choose the ones that work best for your child. Tip sheets for parents of children in Preschool through Third Grade are available in eleven languages!” (thanks to Fastbreak for Fathers)
• Helping Kids Choose Books: Select books according to how your child will use them (thanks to Tif Talks Books)
• Developmental Milestones of Early Literacy by Reach Out and Read
  

Thoughts and Tips for Reading Aloud with Independent Readers

• Nuts and Bolts of the Read Aloud in my Middle School Classroom by Sarah Mulhern, the Reading Zone
• Reading Aloud to Kids Who Are Old Enough to Shave by Candy Blessing
• Teens Take Time to Listen When You Make Time to Read Aloud by Alison Follos
• Tips for Reading Aloud to Preteens and Teens by Reading Is Fundamental (RIF)
  

Read Aloud Resources for Adults

• Jim Trelease’s Home Page
• The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child by Donalyn Miller
• Books About Books and Literacy @ Jen Robinson’s Book Page

Next Week: Books and Booklists. There were so many recommendations, we’re going to break this into a series.

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Popular Reading Tips from Share a Story-Shape a Future 2009

One of the most commented upon aspects of this year’s Literacy Blog Tour was the collection of reading tips and ideas. In this post we’ve pulled together blog posts, references to websites, and some creative ideas offered by participants and their visitors. There were tons of ideas, but the list below focuses on ways to help you “sneak” reading into your day.

We welcome more ideas, so if you leave a link in the comments, I’ll come back and add it here.

2:00PM: updated to fix the list snafu

Websites with Reading Ideas

Reading Tips – a one-page set of easy-to-use ideas courtesy of Reach Out and Read

14 Fantastic Hints on Reading Aloud by Mem Fox – a post by Susan Stephenson (The Book Chook)

20 Ways to Incorporate Literacy Into Your Own Kids' Lives - Valerie Baartz (The Almost Librarian) offered these in an interview at The Book Chook.

Tif Talks Books has posts about Sorting and Roaming Around the Known – Tif says these are two tools she learned about in a Parents as Teachers workshop.

Ideas for Mixing Reading into Your Day

Bathtub Fun - One of our favorite "pre-reading" activities was playing with foam letters in the bathtub. William would line them up from A to Z and then hide his eyes. I would remove a letter and he would try to guess which one was missing. Sometimes instead of removing a letter I would rearrange them. As he got older, we would spell words for each other and then read them. (Tricia Stohr-Hunt, post at The Miss Rumphius Effect)

Letter Art - Kids love to make art using all kinds of media. I invested in alphabet rubber stamps so that William's art could be adorned with letters and words. In the beginning, the artwork contained his just his name stamped on the page. Then, the objects in the scenes were labeled. Now, the art is fully described or sometimes forms the pages of a story. (Tricia Stohr-Hunt, post at The Miss Rumphius Effect)

Write Stories - When you find a book or character your child loves, try to imagine together what the next adventure might be. (Tricia Stohr-Hunt, post at The Miss Rumphius Effect)

Sign Poetry - Travel is actually a very good time to practice reading skills. We keep a pen and paper in the car and often play a game where we collect words and phrases for poetry. We read and write (not me silly, I’m driving!) words we find on signs, billboards, bumper stickers, license plates, etc. Once we have a decent list, we make up silly poems using the words. (Tricia Stohr-Hunt, post at The Miss Rumphius Effect)

Never Leave Home Without It - Anytime we leave the house for errands we carry a bag that holds plain paper, crayons or colored pencils, and a few books that William has selected. Now the mantra before heading out is "Go to the bathroom and then grab a book." There always seems to be time to read in the car, the doctor's office, the restaurant, you name it. (Tricia Stohr-Hunt, post at The Miss Rumphius Effect)

Light Up the Night - Buy your child a flashlight or book light and let him/her read under the covers. William will actually go to bed early if I tell him he can have time reading AFTER lights out. Reading undercover is fun and helps build independence. (Tricia Stohr-Hunt, post at The Miss Rumphius Effect)

Make a List - Keep a running list of favorite books or authors in a spreadsheet or table or use an online service like Goodreads.com. Before you head out to the library or to the bookstore, bring a print out. This list lays out your groundwork. You have information to provide those librarians when they ask what you've liked in the past and you've got solid sources to go back to in case you aren't able to find anything new during that trip. (recommended by Valerie Baartz)

Next post: Literacy Resources

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Keeping Secrets: Not in my DNA

Surprise! We have just launched the new Share a Story - Shape a Future blog. If you're using a reader, you're missing the fun, so click on through!

When we created Share a Story-Shape a Future 2009, we pushed ourselves to take advantage of the momentum and discussions generated by Jen Robinson’s question: How do we encourage reading aloud? We pretty much did everything on the fly. But now ... because y'all want to do this again next year, we decided to give it a little more spiff and polish. I was going to hold the big reveal until I had finished with announcement #2 (below) but I.just.couldn't.do.it.

Do you like the new look? Pretty snazzy, no? Don't you just LOVE the RSS feed logo?

So here's the other shoe: We are creating a one-stop place for you to find the the links and resources that everyone chatted about on the Tour. Whether you wrote a post or put something in a comment, we have pulled your ideas together - and linked them - in a single post. Here are the themes:

2009 Schedule of Events – The full week's agenda with links to host, guest and related posts all in one place.

Popular Reading Tips – Annotated descriptions of your ideas for incorporating reading into your daily routine

Literacy Resources and Tools – Other Internet resources for encouraging reading and helping young readers

Books and Booklists – Individual titles (children’s and adult), themed lists, and Read Alike Lists

There are so many books and booklist/read-alike recommendations that it will take three posts to gather them. One post is just too much.

There may still be a little bit of construction dust while LadyJava finishes up ... but look for new posts in the coming weeks.

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Share a Story-Shape a Future: Literacy Resource Kit

As we were gearing up for Share a Story-Shape a Future, we were collecting lots of information. We were visiting lots of our favorite spots, identifying new resources and links, and thinking about what people had suggested in the comments to Jen Robinson's post about Encouraging Read-Aloud.

The more we collected, the more we realized that this was turning into a cohesive resource. And since the value of information is in the sharing, it only seemed logical to put everything together in one place and make it accessible to anyone who might want it. Hence, the Literacy Resource Kit.

We had links to it yesterday, but it really does deserve it's own spot in the sun. Depending on the results of the survey, we may try to go back through the tour and collect posts, links, and booklists.

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