Manitoba Reading Association
just announced the theme for I Love to
Read month in February. It is Critical Literacy: Empowering
Children & Youth to Change the World. More info and ideas will be forthcoming at their website. You will also notice that the Book Whisperer Donalyn
Miller is coming to SAGE in Winnipeg On October 23, 2015. Our friends at the Reading Council of Greater
Winnipeg are sponsoring her visit. If
you haven’t heard her inspiring talks (and even if you have), register early to
ensure a spot. Donalyn was one of the
featured speakers at the 3rd Adolescent Literacy Summit in Winnipeg
in April and she will be bringing a different address to this conference. Her session is entitled Creating a Classroom
Where Readers Flourish. Follow her on Twitter @donalynbooks and follow MRA
@mra_mb
We are bombarded with reading
material and have a limited time to read! Two blog posts I encountered recently
were very useful if you are trying to encourage a school culture of
reading. One of my favourite bloggers
Pernille Ripp posted What Administrators
Can Do to Promote a Reading Culture. Read it here and I
strongly recommend signing up for her blog in your email. Many of her suggestions are already happening
in your schools, but you may find some that could be implemented. Perhaps a great way to share this article
with your administrator would be to attach it to a book you present to your
principal to start or add to his/her collection of books available for
students. You may want to offer some advice for great books for his/her
collection!
The second blog post I want
to share with you is Ten Reasons to Read Children’s Books Instead of “Grown-up”
Books on The Nerdy Book Club blog. Author
of the post, Isabelle Sudron, states, “Kids
books are blunt!” as one of her reasons.
I especially like #8 “You can do voices.” When I read How to Read a Story to the grade two
class in Miami last week, they had me go back and reread Step 6 where I could
match my voice to the character talking. I think it was their favourite part of
the book! I know it was my favourite. For anybody who has been attending our
PERC workshops, you know I love kids books and tend to buy many of them. Keep coming back to hear about more of them
and feel free to share your favourites with us, too.
