Happy New Year, MLK Day and Year of the Monkey early! Around this time, many schools plan literacy events to remind families of the myriad benefits of reading books together. Family nights, compared to teacher workshops and daytime assemblies for…
St. Patrick’s School Reading Week Committee from left: Parent Volunteer Jackie Johnson, Sister Maureen (Principal), Parent Volunteers Donna Cahill and Martha Pierce This post is in praise of school volunteers, the dedicated parents—and sometimes just caring neighbors—who take on…
Letters from readers are especially sweet when they come from far away. From Kuwait in the case of this note from American teacher Alex Hogan and the students at her bilingual school: “This week at our school is ‘I Love…
Welcome, everybody, to 2015! May your new year brim with joy and creativity. Recently, a long-time reader, and friend, emailed this note. I’ll include my response below. Feel free to pass it on to young adults in your life considering…
Teacher Participation in Elementary School Assembly I admit my job is fun! This video came courtesy of the good teachers of Northview Elementary School in Manhattan, KS. Taken two weeks ago. Special thanks to a special librarian, Andrea Wollenberg, for…
Last week at this time, I was getting acquainted with Emporia State University, home of Kansas’s annual statewide Reading Recovery conference. Title of my luncheon keynote speech: “Teach Reading Like a Jazz Musician!” Jazz musicians specialize in what I call…
Last weekend at the annual CRA conference (California Reading Association), I had the pleasure of hearing, then actually meeting, “The 2 Sisters,” Gail Boushey and Joan Moser, authors of “The Daily 5.” They are teachers making a big impact on…
To all the educators and parent volunteers on my list, Looking for an exciting way to engage students in curriculum this fall? Consider a dynamic author assembly for grades K-8th. The calendar says summer, but school in these parts starts…
My “Creative Jazz Writing Workshops” this summer left me with fodder aplenty to start a new book. As I made the rounds to fourteen (count ‘em!) Migrant Summer School sites in towns like McFarland, Wasco, Taft, Arvin, Lamont, Rosamond, Tehachipi,…