I hope you all enjoyed Jim Trelease as much as I did (even though he said I’m now classified as a stalker since it was my third time seeing him). One thing that really stood out for me that I haven’t heard Trelease mention before is that seven percent of incoming kindergarteners from poverty score the same on tests as students from high income families, and that is the exact same percentage of students from poverty who are graduating from college each year. I think we’ve all known that income level has a great impact on student achievement (hence the reason why a neighboring district always scores so well on standardized tests), but do you think there’s anything we can do to increase the number of poverty level students going on to college and graduating? What can we do at the high school level to promote lower income families to become more literate? For this post share any ideas you have to answer that question as well as one thing that you learned from Trelease or something that you found exceptionally interesting.
As a side note, if you look under the links on this blog page, you’ll find one to Jim Trelease’s website. He basically has his entire Read Aloud Handbook posted on it.
5 comments:
I think one way we (high school teachers) could help promote literacy in our lower income family homes is starts with our kids and getting them to enjoy, truly enjoy, reading. We can’t be picky to start with – if our kids seem to enjoy reading the newspaper more than likely we can help them find topics that interest them so they can increase the types of materials they read. After we have the students “hooked” on reading or at least semi-interested in reading- we can talk about how important reading is. In the past, I talked with my juniors and seniors about how reading is a part of their everyday life and will continue to be in their future even if they aren’t pursuing more education. This seemed to be a real eye-opener especially when I had them list all the things that they may do during and after high school that requires reading – the list was extremely long as you can imagine. After we (finally) get our kids on board to read, the hard part is definitely trying to get their families on board.
My hope is if we can show kids the importance of reading that they would bring that knowledge home to their families. One important thing Jim Trelease mentioned that I think we could actually help improve is the number of books/reading materials that our kids’ have in their homes. Our school did a great job of gathering books for SSR time that I think we could do something similar so our kids can bring reading materials home. I am sure that if we found reading materials that our students enjoy (and maybe something that they know their parents enjoy) they would be willing to bring it home, read it, and hopefully share their enjoyment of reading with their family.
Another way we could get families thinking about literacy is to assign our kids the same type of assignment to do at home that I did with my juniors and seniors. We can only hope that by doing this as well as putting materials into homes the importance of literacy will start to shine through…we can only hope.
Unlike Diane, I am not a stalker, just a groupie of Jim Trelease. This is the second time I have heard him speak. The first time was at one of the State Department's Best Practice seminars, so it was about a six hour presentation. Mr. Trelease reminds me of Janet Allen in that I could sit and listen to him for hours. He is not only very knowledgeable; he also has a very pleasant speaking voice.
Two comments that he made that I found very interesting were that new books have the exact same words as used books. I am bad about always wanting to buy brand new books, but if I would look at the used bookstores more often, I could make my money last longer and/or have a greater impact. Even myself, I try to put books that I want to read on hold at the library to save a little money. I think this comment shows again that if you really want to read, books are accessible! The other comment was about Japan having the highest per capita readership because they are a country of commuter. Now, I tell you I would love to live in a city where I could ride the Metro or MARTA, etc. to work. I hate always having to drive myself, I would save money on gas, and then I could read even more. How cool!
As far as ways to promote lower income families becoming more literate, I think we need to continue to search for ways to get books, magazines, and newspapers into the hands of our kids and families. I encourage my students to take the newspapers home with them for their parents to read; only a few do, though. I try to encourage my students to read at home hoping that they will model good reading behaviors. I have one student who is a teenage mother, and I encourage her to borrow my picture books to take home to read to her son. I think that we could offer tips and book suggestions via the school website and newsletter, and I think that being able to give the students their summer reading book would help to promote literacy at home. Not every idea will work with every family, but we have to be happy if we can impact just one.
I, too, like Pam, am a Jim Trelease groupie (not a stalker), and I love the message he’s spreading. Unfortunately he may be sharing it with the wrong people. I personally think he should be talking to pediatricians, WIC and DSS caseworkers, and any other people who come into contact with the parents of preschool aged children. Trying to catch kids up once they’re in the public school system takes far more work than it would take for parents to read to and talk with their young children. Diane and I talked a while back about how great it would be if every pediatrician identified their youngest patients who are at risk and made sure the parents of those children understand the importance of interacting with and reading to their children. Surely there are grants out there to provide the funding for the books.
I loved the point Mr. Trelease made about the different kinds of vocabulary—listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Everything he said about vocabulary made perfect sense; I just had never put it all together the way he did. One of the neatest things about watching Carlie grow up is watching her acquire language. I was always amazed at how even before she could talk, she could process a series of requests. I knew she understood what I said (thus the reason she got spanked when she blatantly disobeyed). I can also remember when she started using the word actually in her vocabulary. She used it because my mother uses the word frequently. I must admit that I didn’t read to her as much as I should have when she was younger and she’s had a TV in her room since the Christmas after she turned four; but since before she was born, I have really talked to her, not just at her. I realize now it was her listening vocabulary which lead to her speaking vocabulary that prepared her for learning to read. As for the correlation between Monday Night football and the drop in reading, I can only say, “Wow!” I guess it’s just another example of people, especially in our country, not always prioritizing very well. That’s why children go hungry while mom and/or dad buy lottery tickets.
October 31, 2007 Blog
Unfortunately, I was unable to be two places at once and was unable to hear Jim Trelease speak (already supervising the NHS students at our school’s community-wide Trick-or-Treat night) but did want to respond to a few of the suggestions that I read from those of you who were able to attend.
First, I liked Kelly’s idea of having books our students like to read so that they could check them out and do independent reading at home for the pure pleasure of reading. My daughter is in kindergarten this year and now that she is reading part of her homework includes 3 books being sent home each week. The first book is checked out of the school library (and Pam- it is used but Taylor loves it just the same so apparently the words are the same in a new or used book) by Taylor for me to read to her. The other two books are sent in a folder by the teacher and are numbered and are for Taylor to read to me. Then I am to sign that she has successfully read them and have her complete her ‘book sheet.’ Taylor looks forward to showing her new skills in reading and makes sure she returns her library each book so that she will be able to check out another book each Monday.
I have set up a growing library of young adult literature and have done what Diane suggested and placed a sign out sheet for the students to simply pick which books that they wish to borrow and they’re off. With the recent interest in our school-wide Book Fair in December that the students do enjoy to read…just may not enjoy being ‘assigned’ reading with little or no choice. It would do us well to come up with more than just the library for the students to check out the books because like we noted in the Library Advisory Committee meeting yesterday, a lot of students don’t have time in their day to fit in a trip to the media center especially now that it is located in a less central location than the old media center.
After traveling on the tube in London over the Christmas holidays I noted that many of the commuters would pass the time reading. I did not notice any of the handheld DS Nintendo games or the like while on the tube. I think Mr. Trelease was correct in his assessment of Japan, Claire. Meanwhile, we have televisions in a lot of our family cars…not just in Carly’s room. I have to admit that Taylor and Tyler have each had televisions in their rooms since they turned 4-years-old as well. Although we all read to our children at home so many of our students never had that luxury and still don’t see buying books at home as an option with limited income restraints.
I think with the SSR time being in our schedule now the time is ripe for us to get the books in the students’ hands. I love SSR and my students respond positively to being allowed a time during the day that they can simply read a book of their choice simply for the pleasure of it.
I think I might be a stalker as well.... I do believe this was my 3rd time seeing Jim (see... we are even on a first name basis). I agree with Pam that I could listen to him talk for hours. He not only is knowledgeable but is funny and entertaining (although I don't think I can hear the Lizards Thicket joke one more time!!!!)
As for promoting literacy in lower income families... We put so much emphasis on students and getting them to read, that we often do not put much emphasis on the families and parents. We often do not feel as if it is our "job" to do this, but if we want our students to be readers and to value reading, then we must get their families to value reading.
Since that is pretty much something that is an extremely far off goal, I agree with Kelly that we need to start our kids reading anything.... We so often get obsessed with them reading "books" that we do not see reading magazines and other literature as reading! I used to think my students who read comics were not reading, but as I have learned more myself, I realize that they are reading and that it does not have to be a "book" for them to be reading.
It is important for us to have a variety of different texts in various different genres in our classroom to meet many different students learning styles and preferences. By tapping into some of these preferences and styles, we are more able to help promote life long readers and promote literacy in our community.
Post a Comment