- Begin reading to our children when they are babies and keep reading to them. Encourage painting and drawing, this will lead to them making letters. Be a positive inspiration to children by showing them in good example with your own love for books. Give to them good literary habits.
- As a tutor encourage a check-list for capitals, punctuation and spelling. The writer should read their work out loud. Is the writing clear, comprehensive and understandable? Always proof read writen work more then once and ask someone else to read it too.
- Get a friend or join a support group to practice reading out loud. This is sometimes one of the most painful concepts when one has literary weaknesses. Reading out loud will surely strengthen reading, writing and social skills.
- Something that is very helpful and private is to have a diary or journal just for your thoughts. You can use this to perfect what you are working on and also a tutor can encourage note keeping to show visible growth and progress.
- A visit to the library can introduce an array of literary tools that far exceed books. Certainly there will be resource material for any one at any level or age group with limited literary skills.
- A book club introduces literature that perhaps would not be considered otherwise. There is also that encouragement to finish a book in its entirety and to understand what we have read so that we can participate in the discussion group. There are different reading levels and age groups to consider.
-
Let's Get Kids Writing - Short stories by children reveal interesting
new ideas...
helps parents guide their children writing short stories to improve literacy and social skills. It includes tips on keyboarding, elements of a story, motivation and help for work-at-home moms and dads.When parents join their children in the typing or keyboarding of short stories, everybody wins.
-
The Key: A Newspaper written for new readers. The Key provides reading material for adults with limited reading skills. These include adults who have not completed their high school educations, those learning English and those with learning disabilities.
-
Between the Lions: A fun site directed rather to the Parent teaching their child to read. Many elements are made available to assist in building literary skills along with ideas on introducing words and books to new readers.
Labels: literacy, literature, reading, writing
:UP:
Where Is Our Gift of Reading?
Authored by Denny Lancaster
used with permission
Introduction:
All of us receive and give gifts during our life while on mother earth. Some of these gifts become old and torn, others are no longer relevant in our lives as we grow older and some, which we receive are given to others on Christmas or other holidays and occasions. But one gift given to me by my mother and grandmother is still retained. Which is the gift of reading on a regular or consistent basis.
Forward
The reality that more impressions are received from reading than from all other sources combined, is more relevant to me today, than it was in my younger years. I obviously dreamed or thought that all of my fellow human beings also read on a regular basis, that is until a National Endowment for the Arts Survey in 2004 was revisited in light of recent studies which indicate a national decline in math skills, the inability to find well known countries on a map of the world, what seems to be a general decline of ethics or morality in business and with respect to our elderly, defenseless children and so forth.
NEA Survey
While the reasons for a decline in reading are not spelled out in the NEA study and we are left to ponder this decline which is across gender, ethnicity, age and education lines, we can none the less evaluate the decline based upon our own experience by exploring some of the major obstacles to reading on a regular or consistent basis.
Obstacles To Regular or Consistent Reading
Not Reading To Someone
Few pictures will invoke fonder memories of reading or being read too, than a picture of a child in a grandfather's lap, looking up as if to grasp and understand every word uttered, while the grandfather smiles as he reads, in enjoyment a story or nursery rhyme which was read to him as a child, by an adult.
The value of reading to our children was called into question by Jean Piaget, whose research showed children are not ready to learn until the age of six or seven; teaching styles were thought to be the problem and rote was replaced by phonics; brain science was becoming of age and baby speak or talk gained greater acceptance as fact rather than fancy; Sesame Street came to television and our very young associated a visual presentation to learning subject or object; and in our quest for material objects and just getting by, our children were literally forced to find books as a companion to replace the lack of parenting.
While we can either agree or disagree with any or all of what has been presented so far, none of us would discount a value of Lent, which to we Catholics is giving up something like cigarettes, but apply this objective in reverse, by doing something of value we do not do at present, like read. To ourselves, to our children, to an audience and in the process develop diction, self-confidence and a feeling of self worth as a parent and world citizen.
Lack of Oral Tradition
Another picture, which comes to our minds at birthdays and other occasions, is that of a loved one who took the time with children and other adults to recall a mind-boggling story, which we can remember even in our later years. Remember this dear reader. Prior to 900 A.D. the world read aloud until Seymour Simon, the scribe made a discovery, white spaces; Gutenberg elevated manuscript culture to an art form; Sputnik gave us ecology which became an art form; and electronic media forged ahead in western culture, while oral traditions dominate eastern culture, not because books, television or electronic media are not readily available and every society realizes the value of listening to an oral presentation, coupled with visually following along, while reinforcing this process with recital. So why not eliminate an obstacle to reading by revisiting or renewal of oral traditions. Just remember this picture of your grandfather with you sitting on his knee long after he has left mother earth and do what your heart says for you to do.
Drudgery Not Pleasure
A man in the mid 1600s named Antonio di Marco Magliabechi confessed that he could read, comprehend and memorize entire volumes at a rapid rate, yet when we were reading Dick and Jane in the first grade it took hours, the reading list in high school and college took weeks to complete, leaving very little time for actual study or going to the movie show and then we realized the problem. We just read too slowly, did not remember very much of what we had read, what we did remember was not retained from reading until test time. Reading became drudgery not a pleasure, until Evelyn Wood burst upon the scene with a few discoveries, which firmly established speed-reading. Reading at last became a pleasure. While our readers may agree or disagree with what has been written, is there any one of us who would not gladly trade our current reading or not reading habit for one in which we can triple reading speed with the same comprehension or better?
Conclusions
While there are many more obstacles to loosing our friend, reading, this short list is at least an excellent start. Now having said that and written this paper, I must contemplate the reaction to having a published something to read, which just may benefit non- readers who have not been exposed to the value of reading on a regular and continuing basis. Perhaps you dear reader could help by engaging in our oral traditions by telling someone about this article, and then let them read the article and both of you reinforcing by discussion what has been learned.
Citations:
History of Speed Reading and Evelyn Wood, by H. Bernard Wechsler, March
31, 2003
The Reading Matrix, Volume 1, Number 1, April 2001
National Endowment for the Arts Survey, 2002
Schools Attuned Online, All Kinds of Minds, 1999-2006
Kump, Peter (1988). Break-through rapid reading. New York: Prentice Hall.
Redway, Kathryn (1999). Here’s How: Be a rapid reader. New York:
Learningworks.
Statement of Dr. G. Reid Lyon, Committee on Labor and Human Resources, April
28, 1998.
David Bouchard (2001) The Gift of Reading
Footnote
This article is dedicated to Bill Morgan, Webmaster of
Lagoon View Yacht Club Award Program
Labels: article, literacy, litkorner2006, reading
:UP:
Literacy For All!
Authored by Cynthia E. Jones
Literacy for every Child, and adult, for boys and girls, for men and women, for those in school and out of school, for all communities, rich, poor, rural and urban, for all countries, for all the world and eliminate despair.
Chances are, if you are reading this, you personally are not dealing with literacy or illiteracy issues. There is a possibility however, that you know someone who is. Maybe you are like me and struggle with literacy, making it a daily practice to improve your vocabulary and writing skills. You may be a Parent or Grand-Parent of a Child learning to read or having difficulty with reading and comprehension.
'Early language and educational experiences for children have been found to be particularly critical to adult literacy levels. Early education activities such as learning nursery rhymes and stories, watching Sesame Street, playing word and number games, being read to at an early age, all positively relate to a students' ability to read. Children who learn to read early typically are better students and have higher reading levels. If our nation's schools are going to have an impact on literacy rates, then clearly all children must be given every possible opportunity to learn to read. Policy makers, teachers and parents alike need to work cooperatively with schools in order to achieve this goal.'
Found at
With the tools and information to help build literacy in children.
These examples are challenging for anyone who faces them.
Must one be illiterate before literacy issues are considered severe?
Literacy and the lack of, surrounds us all. It is not a matter of genius or scholar, nor simply the eloquence of one's penmanship. It is however a matter of necessity. Even so, we often times shrug off the notion when our schools are denied funding for books and supplies. We do not take time to research our local libraries to understand how they are funded and how we can help assure that they remain open for our community.
How Libraries are Funded
The Campaign to Save America's Libraries
Reach Out and Read
Worldly View of Literacy
In developing countries, children are deprived of books and education as frequently as medicine and food. These Children are far too sick and hungry to even think about learning. However, with continual support to organizations that are changing these statistics, wrongs can be corrected. With proper instruction and education, poverty, disease, and the neglect of human rights may all be reversed. Literacy may seem to be a minimal resolve to such huge issues. However, literacy does seem to hold a bright beginning to creating change and the lack of literacy may after all be the rooting factor to many of these problems.
'For millions of children across the world, access to a quality education is a luxury beyond their reach. Every child should be able to benefit from education, but around 113 million children are denied this fundamental right. The majority is female.' UNICEF
'HIV/AIDS is decimating education systems across the developing world. Children, and girls in particular are staying away from school to look after sick relatives, the number of children under 15 orphaned by AIDS stands at 10.4 million globally, and in Sub Saharan Africa alone close to 1 million children have lost a teacher to HIV/AIDS.' UNICEF
Poverty is not the only thief of literacy. Cultures and beliefs are also common factors. In some societies, it is thought to be needless for a little girl to go to school or to learn to read.
"… the best way to fight this is to educate the young girls so that they KNOW that they are not being treated right. Many women just feel that that is the way things are, and that they cannot change." Mareka, 15, from Australia
"Change must take place through evolution, through educating the young people of today. We can only hope that the adults of tomorrow will make the right choice." Girl, 16, from the UK
Labels: article, literacy, litkorner2005
:UP:
Personal Poetry
Whispers.. Darkness.. Purple Moon.. Military Woman.. Red, White, and Blue..
He
Lives.. She.. Undead Chant.. Time.. Life Storms.. How's
Mine?..
My
River.. Leading Light.. A Father's Love.. Our Moon.. When Autumn Fades.. And
I Weep..
My Love Letter.. Untold.. Perverse... Unclean.. My Sanctuary.. In The Spring..
Writing Tools Defined
:Structual:
:Form:
:Language:
:Rythmic:
:Voice:
:Prose:
LitKorner Articles
:2003:
:2004:
:2005:
:2006:
Other
:Author:
:Causes:
:Literacy Tips:
:UP:
Site Map Cynthia Jones cynthia188@msn.com Policies-Copyright.