Category: Culture of Reading

Tips for Reading Aloud: March edition

Image result for parents reading booksThere is something extra special about sharing a beloved book from our childhood with our own small people. There are a number of picture books from when I was little (early 80s) that are still in print today.

It is always a good idea to preview a book before beginning to read it aloud. In the case of a book we remember fondly from childhood, the preview isn’t so much about making sure the text works well as a read-aloud, but rather to screen it against the test of time. The fact is that some books, despite our fondest memories, do not age well. When read today, to today’s young audience, a number of “classics” are rather jarring in their treatment of diverse characters (read: they are sexist and racist.)

Image result for reading AND together OR kids OR parents

Sometimes we can change words on the fly, if we encounter a problematic term and it’s fairly isolated. Other times the prejudice becomes so thick, so quickly, that the best thing we can do is to stop reading and show our authentic dislike of the text; talk about why the prejudice is not okay as well as how you remember reading the book as a child (when it wasn’t something that stuck out as inappropriate) and isn’t it great that we can see a tangible example of how we are getting better as a society?

Keep sharing your favourite stories with the young people in your life.

Happy reading!

Tips for Reading Aloud: February Edition

*a few days late

Among other special days (like my birthday) February sees us celebrating both Family Day and Pink Shirt Day. Both of these days are inspiration for this month’s tip(s) for reading aloud.

Reading aloud together is a wonderful way for family members to bond with children. Try to make some time on your next visit with extended family for them to sit with the kids and read. Older siblings can also read to their younger brothers and sisters and, in doing so, strengthen their relationship in a unique way.
If a family member if willing to try reading aloud, they may not have a good book at hand. It can be helpful if you have a title to offer in case it’s needed.

Pink Shirt Day reminds us that it is better to face discrimination head-on. By standing up, speaking out and taking positive action we can often deflate hurtful situations. One way to start preparing young children for the inevitable day that they will be faced with injustice is by reading stories about significant issues and talking about them together. By experiencing troubling topics in the safety of a story read aloud while cuddling on the couch, children develop the emotional skills they will need when confronted with a troubling situation in real life.

Quilchena Reading Challenge: March

Image result for march is reading month

We had even more completed reading challenge sheets turned in for February that we did for January. Well done everyone!! Let’s keep that trend moving up.

We only have two and a bit weeks of school in March but that doesn’t mean that we can’t do a whole reading challenge. In fact, everyone will have SO much free time I should make this one longer! (just kidding)

In the spirit of this month’s Spring Break, the March Reading Challenge invites us to combine our love of reading with our love of the other activities we do. Books about hobbies, sports, music, whatever you like to do in you spare time (other than reading… or maybe including reading?) are what we’re looking for this month.

If you’re just joining the fun, here’s how to participate:

  1. Download the March Reading Challenge and print it.
  2. Start reading! Choose books that match the categories in the challenge and write down the titles as you complete them. You must read these books in March. (There is no length/difficulty requirement. Choose books that interest you, or that are an interesting stretch.)
  3. If you finish this month’s challenge, write your name on your sheet and hand it in to Mme Brogan in the library. There will be a draw for a prize for students who complete each month’s challenge.

I will create a new challenge each month from now until June. There will be a special prize draw for readers who completed and handed in all 6 challenges.

Read on for the March edition of the Quilchena Reaching Challenge:

Recreational Reading
We enjoy spending our time reading but it’s not the only thing we do for fun. Sometimes it’s fun to combine pastimes and read books about our other activities! We get a particular pleasure from spending time in a story that deals with subject matter we already know about. On the flip-side, when we read about an activity that is new to us, we get to experience a bit of what it’s like to be part of that community; it can be fascinating and inspiring.
March is also the month of the vernal equinox. It’s a good time to reflect on the balance in our lives.

1. A book about a sport.

2. A book that features a game.

3. A book about music.

4. A book about a pet (or pets.)

5. A story that is told from multiple perspectives.

The Quilchena Reading Challenges are for all students, teachers, and parents. The categories are designed to be applicable to any and all reading levels. As a reader, you get to choose how long, how hard, and in what format the books are to complete this challenge. I trust you to make good choices for yourself.

Quilchena Reading Challenge: February

Congratulations to everyone who completed the January Reading Challenge! I know that a number of students became interested towards the end of the month so if you didn’t have a chance to finish the January challenge in time for the draw, now is your chance to get going on a new list with a whole month ahead of you (of course, you can still finish the January challenge because: reading!)

There are a a number of good February themes to choose from: Kindness; Relationships/Valentine’s Day; Families; Pink Shirt Day/bullying. I decided to go with “Families” as I felt these stories also fell into other themes as well.

If you’re just joining the fun, here’s how to participate:

  1. Download the February Reading Challenge and print it.
  2. Start reading! Choose books that match the categories in the challenge and write down the titles as you complete them. You must read these books in February. (There is no length/difficulty requirement. Choose books that interest you, or that are an interesting stretch.)
  3. If you finish this month’s challenge, write your name on your sheet and hand it in to Mme Brogan in the library. There will be a draw for a prize for students who complete each month’s challenge.

I will create a new challenge each month from now until June. There will be a special prize draw for readers who completed and handed in all 6 challenges.

Behold, the February edition of the Quilchena Reaching Challenge:

Families of all Sorts

Families come in all shapes and sizes. We might live with them, we might not. We might be related by blood, we might not. We might not always get along with every member of our family, but they definitely play a part in making us who we are.

  1. A book about a character who does not live with his or her parents.
  2. A novel set at a boarding school or a picture book about a group of animal friends.
  3. A book about siblings.
  4. A story with a prominent aunt or uncle OR a story with a same-sex relationship.
  5. A story that features a grandparent.

The Quilchena Reading Challenges are for all students, teachers, and parents. The categories are designed to be applicable to any and all reading levels. As a reader, you get to choose how long, how hard, and in what format the books are to complete this challenge. I trust you to make good choices for yourself.

 

*Coming soon: tips on how to use the library catalog to find titles that will work for your reading challenge.

Tips for Reading Aloud: January Edition

New year, new habits.

I have a friend with whom I used to work at Kidsbooks who had a family routine that I admire: after supper most nights she would read aloud from the dinning table while her partner and daughter washed the dishes. They did this well into her daughter’s teen years.

We often read a story aloud at bedtime. What other regular times might be conducive to reading aloud? Sunday mornings? While you wait for lessons to start? Or, if it’s challenging to find a regular time, try to choose reading aloud as a spontaneous family activity, like on a sunny afternoon, laying on the grass in the park.

Continuing to read aloud to our children as they get older has a number of benefits:

  • it supports their vocabulary development
  • it allows you to engage in tricky conversations about difficult topics
  • it maintains moments of closeness, physically and emotionally
  • it models an ongoing reading life

There is some more good information in this post on the blog “Best Book for Kids.”

Quilchena Reading Challenge: January

Welcome to the 2020 series of Quilchena Reading Challenges. I will be publishing a custom reading challenge for our Quilchena community each month from January to June.

Here’s how to participate:

  1. Download the JANUARY Reading Challenge and print it.
  2. Start reading! Choose books that match the categories in the challenge and write down the titles as you complete them. (There is no length/difficulty requirement. Choose books that interest you, or that are an interesting stretch.)
  3. If you finish this month’s challenge, write your name on your sheet and hand it in to Mme Brogan in the library. There MAY be a draw for a prize for students who complete each month’s challenge.

Quilchena Reading Challenges are designed so that anyone in the school community can participate: students of any grade, family members, teachers, ANYONE! The categories/tasks can be fulfilled by any type of story; it’s up to the reader to select an appropriate title.

See the previous post for more details about how awesome reading challenges are.

here is the Quilchena Reading Challenge–January edition, print it, and START READING.

Mirrors and Windows

Stories are integral to our lives.  We use stories to feel connected to others and to understand our own experiences. We need to have stories in our lives that are mirrors—that reflect back to us our own experience—and stories that are windows—that show us an experience other than our own.  

  1. A book that is about a character from the same culture as you.
  2. A book about a character who has a non-mainstream SOGI*.
  3. A book set in a country that you have spent time, other than Canada.
  4. A book that is about time in some way.
  5. The first book in a series in which you are interested.

*SOGI = sexual orientation and gender identity

The Quilchena Reading Challenges are for all students, teachers, and parents. The categories are designed to be applicable to any and all reading levels. To complete this challenge, you get to choose how long, how hard, and in what format the books are. I trust you to make good choices for yourself.

Reading Challenges!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

My new favourite thing about the new year is that it’s time to start a new reading challenge. Last year I looked at many different challenges online and eventually chose the BookRiot Read Harder Challenge. I love it. I was pushed to read books I wouldn’t have ordinarily picked up. I also enjoyed the conversations I had with a few friends who decided to do the challenge along with me. I will be doing it again this year.

Image result for creative commons image carrying booksWhat could make my new love of reading challenges grow to new heights? Creating challenges for Quilchena students, of course! I will create a reading challenge every month for Quilchena students who choose to follow along. There may even be a prize in June for the students who successfully complete all six challenges. (We all know that even if you don’t finish all the categories in a challenge, you’re still better off for having read those stories, so don’t worry if you don’t always finish.)

“the only difference between a nonreader and a reader is that a reader has a plan for future reading and a nonreader does not,”

If you are interested in further reading about the awesomeness of intentional reading lives (including reading challenges), have a look at this article from the Atlantic.

Happy reading!

 

Tips for reading aloud: December edition

Image result for longest night bauerI read The Longest Night by Marion Bauer to many of my classes this week in preparation for the winter solstice on Saturday. Each time, I turned off the lights over the story-time area of the library to simulate the dark and quiet of the longest night of the year.
The resulting atmosphere was very effective to invoke the rich wintery shadows of the illustrations as well as to highlight the sense of the animals calling out into the night.

Sometimes setting up the environment with a simple change can be an easy way to enrich our read aloud by infusing our listener’s atmospheric experience.

Tips for reading aloud: November edition

Happy November! The leaves have changed colours, the wind has a chill to it, my sweaters are moving to a more prominent spot in my closet…. It’s autumn!!!

This month’s tip for becoming better at reading aloud is voice modulation. That sounds technical and sophisticated but really all it means is varying the speed and volume of your voice. In Reading Magic, Mem Fox (children’s author, illustrator, and advocate for reading to children of all ages) suggests this as one very quick and easy thing to do that will make your read-aloud voice ten times better.

You don’t have to do all the funny voices for all the characters to be entertaining. When you read a story, let the words and sentences you’re reading come to life by:

      • putting more space in the middle and at the end of certain sentences. A pause right before or right after a key word or phrase can provide time for your listener to anticipate what’s about to happen or absorb what just occurred in the story.
      • s l o w i n g down an individual word for emphasis.
      • speeding up your reading during an exciting part of the story. Slow back down to regular reading speed before you reach the end of the sentence/section; the dynamic push and pull of reading speed will excite your listener.
      • let the pitch of your voice rise and fall or let your volume become a shout or a whisper as the text dictates. Literally do the thing the narration tells you. (“He floated up, up, up into the air….”) Don’t worry if you miss one. I always miss that first piece of dialogue that’s followed by the tag “…she whispered.” You’ll get it the next time around.

You don’t have to do all these things at once. Choose something that seems the easiest to try and play around with it. Unsurprisingly, the more you practice your dynamic read aloud voice the easier and better it will be.