Sight Word Recognition

As you’re sitting here reading this article, chances are that you aren’t thinking for long about each individual word. You’re simply recognizing the words “on sight” because they are familiar to you. Hence, you are “sight reading”.
For children, sight word recognition is an important step to being able to efficiently learn to read. If they don’t have to stop and consider what each word is, they will have the freedom to comprehend the meaning and context of sentences and paragraphs. Consequently, it’s critical for parents, babysitters, guardians, grandparents and educators to help beginning readers learn to instantly identify words.

n order to assist the child in your life in reaching this kind of reading fluidity, there are several techniques and games you can utilize, including those listed below:

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Get Ready For School – Reading Tips For Young Kids

Wondering how to help your child get ready for school? Good habits are best formed when kids are young. In the primary years, kids sit on the floor to hear stories read by the teacher from a story book. In the middle and upper primary years, kids are expected to read independently and quietly to themselves as well. Preparing the foundations for good reading habits can begin as soon as your baby can sit up, from six months onwards.

Even before then, propping your baby on your lap with a book often, helps baby to associate holding books with being in a fun, safe environment. After your child is asleep in her cot, leave one or two picture books within reach so that she sees them when she wakes up. This can delay her crying out for you.

She learns very early that books are a fun, interesting companion, especially if one of them squeaks or is tactile made from various materials, or has shiny pictures and shapes that glitter from different angles. The best environment for reading is away from distractions like TV or computer screens. This can be on a designated 'reading couch' or bean bag, on a mat or on a bed.

If parents (or carer) are consistently relaxed and unhurried when reading together, kids are likely to follow suit, and remain calm and engaged with their book. Carers reading to kids often - even if only for short periods - prepares kids from a young age to enjoy listening to stories. It helps get them ready to engage with story-time at school.

Encouraging young kids to 'read' aloud as well - i.e. tell a story with book in hand while turning the pages - lays fabulous foundations to enjoy quiet reading in the future when they reach middle and upper primary school.

Author, Karen S. Thomas say she "is currently writing a fictional story in my blog, http://tommyswritingblog.wordpress.com. I am writing as I go without really knowing what the characters will do next. Check it out! Read it out aloud to your kids or to kids you know. Tell me what you think and where you want the story to go."

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“The tremendous power of books”

Recently, book publishers got some good news. Researchers gave 852 disadvantaged students 12 books (of their own choosing) to take home at the end of the school year. They did this for three successive years.

Then the researchers, led by Richard Allington of the University of Tennessee, looked at those students’ test scores. They found that the students who brought the books home had significantly higher reading scores than other students. These students were less affected by the “summer slide” — the decline that especially afflicts lower-income students during the vacation months. In fact, just having those 12 books seemed to have as much positive effect as attending summer school.

Read more ...

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Of all the places to read a good book ….!

Reading is wonderful - agree?

Reading is great escape from the worries of the world - agree?

Reading is wonderful and a great escape while you are driving .... hmmmm!

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Thought for the day – reading

To sit alone in the lamplight with a book spread out before you, and hold intimate converse with men of unseen generations - such is a pleasure beyond compare. ~Kenko Yoshida

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How do you judge a book by its cover if it doesn’t have one?

Among other changes heralded by the e-book era, digital editions are bumping book covers off the subway, the coffee table and the beach. That is a loss for publishers and authors, who enjoy some free advertising for their books in printed form: if you notice the jackets on the books people are reading on a plane or in the park, you might decide to check out “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” or “The Help,” too.

Read the whole article

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Story time online

Barnes & Noble Launches Online Storytime
Parents of picture-book readers needn’t leave home to enjoy story time with their children. This week, Barnes & Noble.com debuted its Online Storytime program dedicated Web site, videos featuring pan-and-scan filming of picture books accompanied by readings by authors or celebrities. A new Online Storytime entry will be added to the site on the first Tuesday of each month. The inaugural offering features Jane O’Connor narrating her Fancy Nancy: Bonjour, Butterfly (HarperCollins) along with displays of Robin Preiss Glasser’s illustrations.  more...

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Book owners have smarter kids

When it comes to your children, the books in your house matter more than your education or income

A study recently published in the journal Research in Social Stratification and Mobility found that just having books around the house (the more, the better) is correlated with how many years of schooling a child will complete.

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Children’s Books by Adult Authors

The Children’s Books of Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Chinua Achebe & Others

We Too Were Children, Mr. Barrie is a (relatively) new blog devoted to lesser-known, out-of-print children’s books by ‘adult authors’. New finds are uploaded each week by Ariel S. Winter, some of which include picture books by Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Chinua Achebe and Theo Le Sieg (aka Dr. Seuss – not strictly an adult author per say, but he did use this pseudonym for several books which he wrote but did not illustrate).

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Winners of IBBY-Asahi Reading Promotion Award Announced – 2010 Marks Twentieth Anniversary

Bologna, Italy....

The International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) today announced the winners of the 2010 IBBY-Asahi Reading Promotion Awards. This is the 20th Anniversary of the award given by IBBY and the Asahi Shimbun newspaper company for international projects run by groups or institutions judged to be making a lasting contribution to reading for young people. The Award is given every other year to two organizations. The 2010 winners are The Osu Children's Library Fund, Ghana, http://www.osuchildrenslibraryfund.ca, and Convenio de Cooperación al Plan de Lectura, Medellín, Colombia, http://bit.ly/9kSlvg.

Each will receive $10,000 US, which will be presented at the 32nd IBBY Congress in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, at a special event on September 10th.

The Osu Children's Library Fund (OCLF) consists of two teams one in Canada and the other in Africa- that share the mission of bringing books and literacy skills to African children and adults. OCLF works at the grassroots level, seeking support and participation of elders and members of the host community.

Convenio de Cooperación al Plan de Lectura is a non-profit organization that encourages reading and literary creation by means of awareness, training and research programs, including workshops, storytelling and sessions with authors and illustrators.

Other nominees were:

Alola Literacy & Reading Programme, Dili, Timor-Leste

Indigenous Children´s Literature Writers´ Meeting, Brazil

Visible Readings for Invisible Children, Medellín, Colombia

Room to Read, USA

Kamishibai - To build a culture of peace in the world, Japan

Justita Arenas Reading Room, México City, México

Mama, Tata & ... Myself Campaign, Nowa Iwiczna, Poland

Roma People, invited to the library, Metlika, Slovenia

White Elephant / Domrei Sor, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Akili Trust, Kenya

Members of the 2010 jury are Jury President Hannelore Daubert (Germany), Anastasia Arkhipova (Russia), Nikki Gamble (Great Britain), Jehan Helou (Palestine), AhmadRedza Khairuddin (Malaysia) and James Tumusiime (Uganda).

The International Board on Books for Young People, www.ibby.org, is a non-profit organization which represents an international network of people from all over the world committed to bringing books and children together.