"Education is the way to move mountains, to build bridges, to change the world. Education is the path to the future. I believe that education is indeed freedom. With God's help, these girls will be the future leaders on the path to peace in South Africa and the world." - Oprah
Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy Foundation
Oprah Winfrey dreamt of building a first-class school to nurture, educate and turn gifted South African girls from impoverished backgrounds into the country's future leaders. Now, the school welcomes the first two classes of students - 7th and 8th grade. Be a part of building the dream by supporting the Academy or simply learning more.
www.oprahwinfreyleadershipacademy.orgLabels: education, oprah, reading
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- 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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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
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Celebrate Your Freedom to Read
In a search for September books or back to school reads for young people who will soon be deciding upon an author for
reports and assignments as well as something to read leisurely. I came across Open Your Mind to a Banned Book Throughout the country, most children are starting a new academic year. Teachers are sending out their lists of required readings, and parents are beginning to gather books. In some cases, classics like 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,' 'The Catcher in the Rye,' and 'To Kill a Mocking Bird,' may not be included in curriculum or available in the school library due to challenges made by parents or administrators. Since 1990, the American Library Association's (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom has recorded more than 7,000 book challenges. A challenge is a formal, written complaint requesting a book be removed from library shelves or school curriculum. About three out of four of all challenges are to material in schools or school libraries, and one in four are to material in public libraries. The Office for Intellectual Freedom estimates that less than one-quarter of challenges are reported and recorded. It is thanks to the commitment of librarians, teachers, parents, and students that most challenges are unsuccessful and reading materials, like 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,' 'Slaughterhouse Five,' and the Harry Potter series remains available. When parents in a south Georgia school this summer challenged the use of John Steinbeck's classic 'Of Mice and Men' in the sophomore advanced-level English class, the school superintendent and others rallied to keep the book available. The most challenged and/or restricted reading materials have been books for children. At the same time that families nationwide have embraced the series that has encouraged many youth to delve into thousands of fantasy-filled pages, the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling has been the most frequently challenged title in the country. In fact, this spring a U.S. district judge ordered the books back into general circulation in the Cedarville (Ark.) School District after the district restricted access. Challenges are not simply an expression of a point of view; on the contrary, they are an attempt to remove materials from public use, thereby restricting the access of others. Even if the motivation to ban or challenge a book is well intentioned, the outcome is detrimental. Censorship denies our freedom as individuals to choose and think for ourselves. For children, decisions about what books to read should be made by the people who know them best -their parents or guardians. In support of the right to choose books freely for ourselves, the ALA is sponsoring Banned Books in September, an annual celebration of our right to access books without censorship. This year's observance is themed 'Open Your Mind to a Banned Book', and commemorates the most basic freedom in a democratic society -the freedom to read freely -and encourages us not to take this freedom for granted. Since its inception in 1982, Banned Books Week has reminded us that while not every book is intended for every reader, each of us has the right to decide for ourselves what to read, listen to or view. Thousands of libraries and bookstores across the country will celebrate the freedom to read by participating in special events, exhibits, and read-outs that showcase books that have been banned or threatened. The American Booksellers Association, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression; the ALA; the American Society of Journalists and Authors; the Association of American Publishers; and the National Association of College Stores sponsor Banned Books Week. The Library of Congress Center for the Book endorses the observance. American libraries are the cornerstones of our democracy. Libraries are for everyone, everywhere. Because libraries provide free access to a world of information, they bring opportunity to all people. Now, more than ever, let freedom read at your library! Open your mind to an old favorite or a new banned book this month.
'Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.' (German: 'Dort, wo man Bucher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen.') -Heinrich Heine, from his play Almansor (1821)
Information attained for this article was found at
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Labels: article, literature, litkorner2004, reading
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2004 Reading January, 2004 A year has passed us and a new one begins. One of my resolutions this year is to read more books! When my daughter was too young to read on her own I always found time to pick up a book and read to her. Things have changed so much in the last years. It is a busy world and we love fast pace things. My own family and I, we are now in love with our computers, video games, movies and televisions. Our books sometimes rest too long on the shelves. It is more and more difficult to find time to devote to an entire book. I recently asked several ladies of WOSIB ("Women of Strength and Inner Beauty") to answer a few questions and share their favorite reads. A few ladies did share their reads with me and adding my own favorites the following list of books was created. I thought it would be fun to share the list with you. Some of the following books I read in 2003 but a good book always deserves a second or even third read. Maybe one or more of these titles will appeal to you and you will want to begin your own book list.
Ann Rice is my favorite author. In addition to the list above, this year I will be adding "Blackwood Farm" and "Blood Canticle" to my collection. If you are looking for one of Anne's books to give her a read, I would recommend "Servant of The Bones". It is in my immediate plans to give this book another read myself! I hope with the titles given here you find something to get you on your way to reading this year, I know I have! Happy reading and have a wonderful New Year!!! You can find your books online searching by title at |
Labels: article, litkorner2004, reading
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