Reading

Throughout the changes in education over the years, one goal has remained constant: children must learn to read. It’s a crucial skill for success in every other subject and ultimately, success in life. There is such a focus on the best methods for teaching kids to read; the importance of encouraging the love of reading is often blurred. Students might learn to successfully decode words and read, but they won’t make a habit of reading for pleasure unless they enjoy it.

As we move through the heat of summer, I want look back to see how well we have been busting that summer slide! Camps, lessons, and summer activities can make it hard for parents to make time for enrichment at home. Holidays and a compressed schedule make planning a challenge for summer classroom teachers, too. Since we have been posting activities for each day, I wanted to compile them in this post so you can come back to those activities when you have time. Be on the lookout for more new resource suggestions on Friday.

The following activities focus on music and math, two subjects that can often be intertwined. These were featured on the Gateway the past few weeks on Music and Math Mondays.

As a parent and teacher, I have seen the effects of the “summer slide” or “brain drain” both at home and in school. Kids who aren’t given the chance to exercise their brains during the summer break will most likely lose a lot of knowledge they gained during the school year. Parents have the tough job of helping their children stay educated, entertained and out of trouble during the summer months.

You have given everything you can to your students this year, and now you are about to send them off into their summer vacation. This break from school can often lead to the “summer slide” or “brain drain,” where they forget some of the skills they mastered during the year. It’s scary to think of how much of the year’s hard work can be lost during the summer; a time could ideally be very enriching for students. If you can reach out to students and teachers before and/or during the summer break with activity suggestions and ideas, perhaps you can help plug the “brain drain” this summer.

In 1975, the U.S. Congress enacted Public Law 94-142, or the Education for All Handicapped Children Act. This landmark law required all publicly-funded schools to provide evaluations and equal access to education to physically and mentally disabled children. The Act was revised and renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 1990. Other countries, such as Sweden, had already recognized the importance of promoting educational equality among students of varying intellectual capabilities, and soon other nations began to follow suit with new legislation to address special education.

We cooked our green eggs and ham and walked around school in red and white striped hats, all in the name of the love of reading. Our students were able to hear different adults reading some of their favorite stories aloud. NEA’s Read Across America was a success, but let’s not let our focus on literacy, a core 21st century skill, waver just because Dr. Seuss’s birthday celebration is over. A firm grasp on reading and writing is essential for our students success in many other important 21st century skills.

I decided to expand on last week’s Read Across America column by featuring a few more resources from Reading Rockets. The Reading Rockets project is an educational initiative of WETA, the flagship PBS television and radio station in Washington, DC. The project is comprised of PBS television programs, available on videotape and DVD; online services, including the Websites ReadingRockets.org and ColorinColorado.org; and professional development opportunities.

Elkonin Boxes
http://www.thegateway.org/browse/dcrecord.2010-02-24.5270491171
Subjects: Reading, Spelling
Grade: K-3

In thinking about the importance of NEA’s Read Across America Day, I am reminded of The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins by Theador Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss). As teachers, we all wear many hats, and sometimes we don’t realize how many hats we are wearing and the sheer scope of what we are trying to teach to our students. No matter what “hat” we are wearing or what subject we are teaching at the time, reading is the fundamental skill for our students’ success in that subject. Reading is the most basic of the 21st century skills our students need today to excel in “The School of Life” after graduation. This March, let’s allow Dr. Seuss to inspire us all to bring the kind of fun and imagination into our classrooms that he brings into his stories.

March 2, 2010 marks the 12th year of Read Across America, the innovative reading awareness program created by the National Education Association. Schools, libraries, community centers, and other organizations celebrate the day by hosting events that promote children’s reading. March 2 was chosen as the annual date as a way to honor beloved children’s author Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss. At our local schools, students (and many teachers) dress up, don striped Cat in the Hat head gear, listen to visiting authors, hold readers’ theaters, and otherwise fete the sheer joy of reading.