Tag: Quilchena Reads

Quilchena Reading Challenge: April

Calling on all Quilchena Readers!!!

It is time for the fourth installment of the 2020 Quilchena Reading Challenges!!! Just because we’re not seeing each other at school every day doesn’t mean we can’t share our reading adventures. We can read together… apart!

I am going to continue posting our monthly Reading Challenges as planned, but I will also be posting ALTERNATIVE Reading Challenges each month in case the traditional challenge category format is a bit too tricky in the limited way we are living at the moment.
We will also have to modify how you can submit your completed challenges. More on that below.

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

  1. Download the April Reading Challenge.
  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 April. (There is no length/difficulty requirement. Choose books that interest you, that are an interesting stretch, or are in some way a good fit for you right now.)
  3. Stay tuned for what to do when you finish this month’s challenge. I have a couple of ideas of how you can show me…. I’ll tell you soon.

There will still be a draw for a prize for students who complete each month’s challenge.

I will create challenges 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 April editions of the Quilchena Reaching Challenge:

Spring has sprung!  April Challenge version A

The first day of spring was technically last month but the weather is now getting noticeably warmer and the trees and plants are growing new leaves and flowers. There are many special days in April (did you know that World Penguin Day is April 25th?) Maybe you should take your book outside and find a perfect reading spot from which to observe the warming of the season.

  1. A book of poetry or a story told in verse. (April is Poetry Month)
  2. A joke book, or a humorous novel. (April 1st is April Fools’ Day)
  3. A book with an environmental theme. (April 22nd is Earth Day)
  4. A book in honour of a cultural or religious festival. (Sakura, Vaisakhi, Ramadan, Passover, Easter, etc)
  5. A story that takes place in a forest.

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!

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.

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: 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.

Supporting our Students Becoming Lifelong Readers

A recent article in The Atlantic discusses the factors that contribute to whether a child grows up to become “a reader” or not. “Why Some People Become Lifelong Readers” summarizes many of the socio-economic benefits of being a reader as well as some of the factors that positively impact a child’s development.

Image result for family of readers

TLDR (Too Long, Didn’t Read): a huge part rests on how parents and other caregivers present the activity of reading. But fear not! They provide some practical tips and reassurances:

“So many parents are stressed out by all the research out there that says that reading is tied to things like academic success, testing success, executive function, and emotional well-being,” Paul told me. “Knowing all of that makes parents think, ‘Okay, my kid has to be a reader.’” That mentality can lead them to frame reading to their children as an obligation. “Kids basically perceive that right off the bat—children know, for example, if you’re trying to get them to eat something that’s good for them,” Paul said; the aim is to present reading not as “spinach,” but as “chocolate cake.”

Reading will seem more like chocolate cake if it’s something that parents themselves take part in happily and regularly. “When I’m sitting there on my couch, reading a book, and my kids are doing their own thing, I like to think, ‘I’m parenting right now—they can see me reading this book,’” Russo told me. Similarly, Paul said that if “right after dinner, the first thing you do is scroll through your phone, open up your laptop, or watch TV,” kids are likely to take note. Parents are constantly sending their children messages with how they choose to spend their free time.

Parents don’t have to have grown up avid readers themselves to raise avid readers. Paul and Russo both suggested a bunch of things that parents can do to make reading seem exciting and worthwhile: talk about books during meals or car rides, indicating that they’re just as compelling a subject of conversation as the day’s events; make regular stops at libraries and bookstores, and stay a while; and give books as birthday gifts.

The article finishes with the suggestion to “seed” books around the home, with the point that it’s very hard for a child to be bored when they are surrounded by books.

I wonder if anyone in the Quilchena community have other suggestions of how to increase the reading culture at home. You can share your successes in the comments.

What to read next?

SUBMITTED BY HIKARI*
Nathaniel is a magician’s apprentice. His birthparents left him for the money. Now, he is forced to live a secretive life where magicians show no mercy, djinn are summoned in pentacles, and where your birth name must never, ever slip out. Welcome to the witty, complicated world of Jonathan Stroud’s The Amulet of Samarkand.

Nathaniel is an obedient, studious apprentice, with no experience with the outside world. His lessons? Reading, reading, reading, and yet more reading. With the three years’ worth of reading material his master ordered him to read, and the teachers who really do all the teaching, Nathaniel feels as if his master has taught him, well, nothing. But Nathaniel is a polite boy, and sticks to his reading without question, memorizing his lessons on magic with incredible speed.

Until one day, Nathaniel’s master calls for him, and Mrs. Underwood tells Nathaniel that his master had guests over, and wanted to show him off. Nathaniel had been excited, nervous, and scared, and was ready to shine. But what Nathaniel went through instead, was an alarming experience that he would never forget: being mortified by Simon Lovelace in front of dozens of magicians. Filled with childish hate, Nathaniel waits a whole year to cook up a sophisticated plan for revenge. But he can’t do it alone.

His plan? Stealing Lovelace’s Amulet of Samarkand. He knows exactly what he’ll do with the Amulet once obtained, and how he will come to stealing the Amulet. The one thing left he has to do is summon a demon, and charge him steal it. But summoning is not simple. Determined to get revenge, Nathaniel uses his knowledge to secretively summon Bartimaeus, a djinni with a hilarious sense of humor. But one thing seems to go wrong after the other, and when Bartimaeus discovers Nathaniel’s birth name, Nathaniel just might have to be smarter and craftier than ever before to get his sweet revenge.

Mostly written from Bartimaeus’s view, Jonathan Stroud created a magnificent story that really made me chuckle all the way to the last page. I really like the author’s use of footnotes, because they gave me a little background or meaning for some of the words that would otherwise leave me befuddled. The content in the book contains information on magic and wizards that you probably never heard of before. (Even I honestly did not know that dginn could be summoned, and used some of my knowledge from Disney’s Aladdin as a reference.) Anyway, this book was so much fun to read, and I recommend you read it if you like other fantasy books such as Kendra Kandlestar, Magyk, and Inkheart. The book always takes unsuspecting turns, and in the end, creates the unlikeliest of friendships. So what are you waiting for? I charge you to read the book!

*Hikari is a former Quilchena student and library monitor