NCFL Literacy Now

Though we are a day early, Happy National Family Literacy Day! Below you will find some ways that NCFL is celebrating, but we would love to hear how you and your family or program are taking part. Just submit a comment on today’s blog post. Enjoy your day!

Innovative materials for Hispanic families 
Parents + Schools = Successful Children / Padres + Escuelas = Niños Exitosos are new bilingual products/tools designed to raise awareness of the importance of parental involvement in the education of ELL children. Through a Dollar General Literacy Foundation grant, NCFL has created family literacy materials patterned after comic books and graphic novels which are extremely popular in Spanish-speaking cultures.

Materials include:
1. Two bilingual foto-novelas for parents titled “Get Involved!” (¡Involúcrate!) and “Reading at Home” (Lectura en el hogar)

2. For the web, flash movies based on the two foto-novelas, with audio in English and Spanish

3. A practitioner guide with lesson plans and activities for adult ESL and native language use

Visit www.famlit.org/foto to download the materials free, or to order sets for your program or classroom.

New NCFL Ambassador
Grammy-nominated gospel singer Beverly Crawford overcame illiteracy and depression in her teens. In honor of National Family Literacy Day, NCFL is proud to announce Beverly Crawford will become an ambassador for the organization.

“I’m so excited to enter such a powerful relationship,” Crawford said. “At one time in my life, I thought the best thing to do was to be silent about my deficiency to avoid the ridicule of others, but now my willingness to share will offer hope to others. God has opened a great door with this organization, and I will help on every level possible.”

Check back on Monday for a special guest post from Beverly!

A Penny for your Search
You heard about the using GoodSearch a few posts ago, but don’t forget to check out NCFL as the featured charity on the their homepage on National Family Literacy Day (tomorrow).

Just click here or visit www.goodsearch.com to donate to NCFL every time you do an search the Internet.

Have a wonderful National Family Literacy Day!

Today we are pleased to feature a guest post from Angela Maiers! She has a 20-year career in education and is currently working as an independent consultant for literacy and literacy education.  Make sure to check out her blog by clicking here.  Thanks for contributing to Literacy Now, Angela!

To be a reader, you must know what the words are saying. Reading is not reading without comprehension, even for our youngest readers.Comprehension develops over time and across more difficult texts through a series of active reading strategies. Sharing these key strategies with children will help them become strategic and powerful readers.

Each of these strategies supports deeper and more engaged reading:

• Asking questions-Questioning is the strategy that propels learners and learning on. If we did not wonder about the text, why bother continuing the read? As human beings we are driven to make sense of the work and it is our questions that open the doors to understanding.
• Infer and Visualize Meaning-Inferential thinking allows learners to grasp the deeper essence of text and information. Readers infer and visualize meaning by taking the clues in the text or the image and merging it with their own background to draw a conclusion, gain information, or arrive at the big idea that is not explicitly stated in the text.
• Monitoring comprehension-Proficient readers know when they understand what they read and when they do not, and are able to adjust their reading accordingly. A young child may say, I don’t understand what this means. This shows they are thinking about their reading. We can help children keep track of their thinking in a variety of ways: asking a question, stopping and rereading, reading on, or stopping to jot/draw something that captures understanding. Each “fix-up” strategy helps clear,check, and recheck meaning.
• Activate and Connect to Background Knowledge-Nothing colors our learning more than what we bring to text. Whether we are questioning, visualizing, or synthesizing, our background knowledge is the foundation of our thinking. Learning is influenced and impacted by “what we already” know.
• Determining Importance-Remember the days of trying to memorize everything we read? Proficient reading is not about how much you can “hold”, but rather how well you can “sift and sort” out what is most important. What we determine as important in text depends on our purposes for reading. Helping students make those wise and mindful decisions at an early age is crucial.
• Synthesize and Summarize: Comprehension is never static. Our knowledge and understanding is in a constant state of evolution. Synthesizing information nudges us to see the bigger picture as we read. As we summarize the most critical, most important parts of text we merge that with our own life experiences, creating new and deeper levels of understanding. Whether we change our thinking completely or just gain a deeper more thorough understanding, we are different readers each time we engage in the process.

There is no age requirement or statute of limitations to learn these key active reading strategies. Comprehension is a continuous and cumulative accomplishment that takes a lifetime.

Parents and teachers can make a huge contribution by encouraging your child to be an active participant in the meaning making process. As you read and talk about books, try adding “Strategy Talk” into the conversation:

• What does this remind you of…
• What are you wondering…
• How does this help you…
• Close your eyes, what do you see, hear,feel,taste,…
• Does this make sense…what could you do…
• What are you thinking here…
• Why do you think so, what clues are telling you that….
• Does this make you think of anything else you have read,seen,experienced…
• What is most important about…
• In your own words, what do you think the author is saying…
• Tell me about your thinking now…

Kids are brilliant. Every child has both the capability and the capacity to think at the highest levels. Children will continue to develope therr reading and thinking abilities if these strategies are nurtured right from the start! So, what are you waiting for, grab a book now and enjoy the conversation!

XNS? MSDP? TCP/IP? Are you as lost as we are?

Well, tech teams that hailed from all around Louisville weren’t. They all excelled at this year’s Louisville Technology Acronym Bee (LTAB), a fundraising event presented by Republic Bank that benefited NCFL. Corporate IT teams competed in the spelling bee-like competition to see who knew the most technology acronyms. Congratulations to E-ON (Maria Frank, Ginny Rassman, and Josh Wallace), the winners for two years in a row!

Check out the pictures of the event by clicking here.

Thanks to all who were involved in making LTAB such a huge success!

 Literacy for families: Program lets parents, children learn together
Enjoy this story from Sauk Rapids, Minnesota, about families who found success together through family literacy. And to all family literacy practitioners out there across the country, keep up the great work!  From the St. Cloud Times.

Grants Alert
With education budgets getting squeezed more than ever, programs are looking for other sources of funding. GrantsAlert.com lets you browse grants by category (foundation, federal, etc.) or search for keywords. You can learn more about NCFL’s Toyota Family Literacy Teacher of the Year and the Verizon Tech Savvy awards on the site too.

The road to financial literacy: Money Bus rolls into Indy with program to teach kids skills early
Earlier this week, Carol Gabler’s post shared the importance of health literacy. This story from The Indianapolis Star explains how another program is teaching financial literacy, another important component of literacy.

Here’s a preview of their initiative: “The Kids Count on the Money Bus program, a mobile financial literacy classroom for third- through fifth-graders…To board the bus, students first must know how to fill out a check and bank slip. They then take cash, checks and a debit card on board and make financial decisions about how to use that money and credit. There are arcade games, photo booths and other interactive activities to keep learning fun.”

Last week I represented the United States at the Frankfurt Book Fair Literacy Campaign Conference (LITCAM) in Frankfurt, Germany. Though the name of the conference is quite a mouthful, I had such a wonderful time! The purpose of the conference was to draw attention to the need to improve literacy around the world; it also was a showcase of excellent practices currently taking place.

While the US and NCFL are making strides to increase literacy across the country, I was humbled by how much we have to learn.

For instance, Ireland has recently launched a multimedia effort for adult learners. The effort is centered around “Written Off,” a reality television series that highlights the issue of literacy, where adult learners go off to an intensive eight-week course in the mountains to improve their literacy skills. The most exciting part of this initiative is viewers who are interested in improving their own skills can call and be matched with a literacy tutor in their area. What a great way to reach people!

Another country to look to is Turkey. Representatives presented findings from a twenty-year study that followed three-year-olds in family literacy programs until the present day. Talk about some rich data!

But the world is still looking at NCFL as a leader in the family literacy movement. I spoke specifically about our work with the indigenous population (notably our FACE Program) and our groundbreaking work with the immigrant population (the Toyota Family Literacy Program) since many European countries are struggling to address the needs of their own immigrant and indigenous populations. NCFL is also on the cutting edge with our technology-based training through Verizon’s Thinkfinity.

This conference had such an enriching atmosphere - no competition on who is achieving the most, but instead a global approach that can go across cultures. The literacy problems here in America are similar to those in Turkey, Ireland, and even remote Africa. And conferences like this highlight that when we share best practices and approaches, we can work to improve the literacy crisis on a global (and local) level.

 Want an easy way to support family literacy and NCFL? Do all your internet searches on GoodSearch.com!

NCFL receives a penny every time you do a search. Just visit www.goodsearch.com or click here. Then enter “National Center for Family Literacy” as your featured charity, and start searching!

Use GoodSearch every day, but be sure to check us out as the featured charity on the their homepage on National Family Literacy Day (November 1).

You can also support NCFL by doing your online shopping through GoodShop.com, the online shopping mall which donates a percentage of each purchase to us. Hundreds of great stores such as Target, Gap, Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, Macy’s and ebay have teamed up with GoodShop and every time you place an order, you’ll be supporting NCFL!

Happy shopping and searching, and thanks for your support!

We know that there are many facets to family literacy, and one of those is health literacy. But what exactly is health literacy? It’s the ability to understand information about your health so you can make wise health care decisions. Carol Gabler of Wisconsin Literacy is a longtime advocate for family literacy. In this special guest post, Carol shares how Wisconsin is approaching health literacy.

Did you know?
- Over one third of the US population cannot use a chart to know when their children need vaccinations;
- use a graph to determine a healthy weight range; or
- read a label so that they don’t take anything that could interact with the over the counter medications.

Creating awareness is the first step to improving health literacy in Wisconsin. A taskforce of educators, health care providers and community members have begun working under Wisconsin Literacy Inc.

One way we are creating awareness is through brochures, and we’re getting family literacy programs involved. Family literacy participants from the Eau Claire Family Literacy Program have posed for some of the pictures in the awareness brochures that have been created. One is written at a fourth grade level to help families communicate with their health care provider. The second one is written for a general audience.

It was fascinating to see the interest in the topic when we went to the family literacy site to take pictures. We thought two families would be involved. But when they heard we were talking about health literacy and met the doctor, the two families left and came back with the rest of the class. They thought it was so important they should all be involved!

It is our hope to work with families in Wisconsin so they will become empowered to be good advocates for their family’s health. We invite you to use our brochure to create awareness in your family literacy program.

We realize that knowledge is power for patients, and that the ability to communicate with health care professionals and navigate a complicated system will result in more effective health care decisions. It is our duty to be informed and to work with each other to accomplish this goal.

Feel free to email me for more information about what we are doing in Wisconsin or how you can help improve health literacy in your program or community.

In One Ear: iTunes U Puts iPods to Good Use
A new online repository offers free, state-approved K-12 course materials and teacher development tools. From Edutopia.

A Nation at Risk: 25 Years Later
Special coverage marking the 25th anniversary of the landmark report, A Nation at Risk. The report was one of the first comprehensive assessments of the American education system. It explained that America’s schools were being overtaken by its international competitors, and America’s weak education system was undermining American prosperity, security and society. From Education Week.

Help 100,000 children thrive in the classroom!
A few months ago, I did a post about DonorsChoose, a site for teachers to “request resources their students need to thrive in the classroom.” DonorsChoose was just chosen as the 2nd place winner in the Members Project sponsored by American Express. Click here to read more about the competition and why they won the $500,000 prize, or visit DonorsChoose.org to read submitted projects (and even submit your own).

Guest blogger Jen Robinson is a children’s literacy advocate who blogs at Jen Robinson’s Book Page . Her goal is to help parents, teachers, and librarians to encourage children to grow up loving books. To that end, she publishes book reviews and literacy news, as well as a weekly email newsletter dedicated to Growing Bookworms. Today, she discusses one of the tangible benefits that she gained from reading.

I was the first person in my family to graduate from college. And I was very, very lucky, because I got to attend the college of my dreams (Duke University). I had support from my parents and teachers along the way, and generous financial support from the university once I got there, and for that support I’m very grateful.

But here’s the thing. I am certain that I wouldn’t have gotten into Duke if I hadn’t loved to read. I wasn’t much of a joiner in high school. I have no athletic, dramatic, or musical ability. I was the kid who sat around reading books all day.

This sitting around reading does not directly look good on college applications. (What are you going to include? Pictures of yourself sitting in a tree reading a book?) However, I had a high score on my SATs, especially the verbal section. And I simply have to think that my verbal SAT score, and even my math SAT score, owe themselves to the hundreds upon hundreds of books that I had read up to that point. I remember reading Dickens in junior high school. I remember reading Joseph Conrad and Shakespeare in high school. Not to mention Madeleine L’Engle and L. M. Montgomery and Jane Austen, and ever so many other authors. And every one of those books was there with me, in one way or another, when I sat down to take that test. I know that there are studies to support the link between reading and academic performance (try The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease for examples), but here I’m giving a personal, specific example.

Of course getting into college is different today than it was in the 80’s - you can’t rely on just SAT scores, you increasingly need to be well-rounded. I also know that there are issues with the fairness of SAT scores, and that some schools are moving away from them. I’m sure that this is a good thing - we should be rewarding the many different ways that kids are remarkable. But still, reading and writing abilities affect the opportunities available to kids, however you choose to measure them.

That’s why I’m telling you what reading books accomplished for me. I didn’t read those books because, as a six-year-old or a fifteen-year-old, I thought that they were “good for me.” I read those books because I LOVED them, couldn’t possibly be without them, would have found a fifteen minute car ride an eternity if I didn’t have a book for company. I believe that those books rewarded my affection by helping me get into into my dream college. No, of course that’s not everyone’s goal. And yes, there are plenty of other benefits that people gain from reading books. I just thought that a few parents out there might find this tiny little case study of interest. If you do, consider it one of the many reasons to be fostering a love of books in your children. Thanks for listening.

You can find a longer version of this article here.

New Better World Books blog
Congratulations to Better World Books, one of our key partners in family literacy, on the great new blog!

How Technology Changes the Way We Do School
This presentation is from Angela Maiers blog, and it explores the role of technology in education and ways teachers can utilize it.

Shameless plug: if you or your program is using technology in a fantastic and cutting-edge way, don’t forget to apply for the Verizon Tech Savvy awards. Your program could win $25,000!

National exam aims to test students’ technological literacy
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) announced this week that they will debut a technological literacy exam in 2012.

Columbus Day Lesson
Learn more about the man who “discovered America” (or San Salvador Island). From the EL Civics for ESL students site. Thanks to Larry Ferlazzo for the link.