Literacy Builders

For the Love of Learning

Reading

Being Resourceful

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How excited would you be if you got 541 new books for your classroom library? One of my colleagues is VERY excited because that is how this new school year is beginning for her. She has so many new books that she enlisted the help of her husband to build bookshelves to give them a proper home.

What’s running through your head right now? Are you wondering where the funds for so many new books came from? Are you wondering where she teaches? Where is it that values reading so much that adding 541 new books to a single classroom library was a priority? Are you wishing that you, too, could start the year with 541 new books?

As I pass through conversations in lots of different schools, I hear a great deal of negative criticism about what teachers CAN’T do because schools haven’t provided what they feel is adequate training, resources, or materials. Teachers wish and wonder what it’s like to work where their friends teach and dream about how much better it would be if “this district did it like that district.” As somebody who works with educators in many different districts, I can tell you, no matter where you teach, something will always be lacking. There is NEVER enough money for all the training, resources, and materials that we need, so instead of resisting good teaching initiatives, I propose we exchange CAN’T for CAN and plow ahead with good teaching practices.

My colleague, the one who has 541 new books for her classroom library, is a dedicated reading workshop teacher. With a mere twelve hours of training under her belt, she started independent reading and literature circles with the classroom library she had. In spite of not having an adequately stocked tool box, she dabbled with mini lessons and teaching strategies and forged ahead with her reading workshop. Her courage and can-do attitude helped her figure out what else she needed to make her reading workshop productive and successful. For her, it came down to books. She needed more books.

Probably like your school district, there wasn’t much money in the budget for new titles, especially the number of books she was looking to add to her classroom library. So what did she do? She placed a letter in the mailbox of her many neighbors asking them to donate any gently used children’s book that had been relegated to a dusty shelf or box in their basement. “Please, if you are done using them, I will put them to good use,” she promised her neighbors. And little by little, the books began to appear—in her mailbox, on her stoop, at the end of her driveway stuffed into a paper bag.

Five hundred forty one books later, Michele feels ready to begin her reading workshop. Is this because she works in a dreamy, heavenly district that made her teaching dreams come true? No. This is because she is a teacher committed to helping children become more proficient readers. In order to do this, they need books. Lots of books. And her students will have them because like any great teacher, she is resourceful.

September Love Affairs

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Yesterday I watched a video of a struggling reader with a group of second grade teachers. As they listened to him read and analyzed his miscues and asked questions about him as a reader, they hypothesized and thought about what he needs to get better. They commented on how cute he was and sympathized about his struggle. They wished out loud that they could work with this child. In short, they fell in love.

Last September, this child’s teacher loved this reader, too. She tried her best to teach him, but as he failed to make the progress she hoped he would, he grew apathetic and uncooperative. He became easily distracted and ill-behaved. By June, September’s love affair had morphed into an eager parting of ways. Good riddance.

Anybody who has ever taught children understands what it is like to teach a child who struggles. When children struggle, it is easy to blame the learner. He’s lazy. He’s not listening. He’s not trying. He’s not supported at home. It’s somehow easier to explain away misgivings when it’s the child’s fault.

But…what if it’s not the child? What if it’s something we’re doing? Or not doing?

As we analyzed the behaviors and errors that this child made as a reader, I was reminded of how important it is that we be reflective about the children we teach. On this day in September, we understand what this reader needs. But as he grows and changes, his needs will change. Only if we remain perceptive and reflective will we change our instruction and approach to continue to meet his needs. We can only do this if we care enough to keep trying.

This September, I urge you to not only fall in love with your students, but to stay in love. When you feel frustrated by the teaching challenges before you, ask questions, think out loud with colleagues, but whatever you do, don’t stop exploring what you could do differently or better to teach the children who sit before you.

Have a great year.

Who Moved My Cheese?

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Who Moved My Cheese? When you hear this title it doesn’t sound much like a book meant to help teachers improve the quality of their literacy instruction. In fact, this little gem by Dr. Spencer Johnson isn’t about teaching—it’s about learning.

In this book, two mice named Sniff and Scurry and two little people named Hem and Haw head into a maze searching for nourishment and happiness which for them, comes in the form of cheese. The journey is different for each character and when the cheese becomes difficult to find and eventually disappears, each character reacts differently.

In education, we face a constant stream of change in the way of student needs, assessments, administrative changes, and shifts in policy. In the same way that Sniff and Scurry and Hem and Haw deal differently with change, so too, do teachers. Who Moved My Cheese? helps to put change into perspective and forces us to think about the need to adapt and rethink how we deliver instruction. In my busy life, I relish simplicity. This story is a simple and valuable tale that takes less than forty-five minutes to read but leaves you thinking and questioning for hours and days after.

The Key to Reading and Writing Success: Don’t Let Children Struggle

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When children struggle, parents struggle to help them. When children struggle with reading and writing, parents often don’t know how to help them. Literacy Builders’ Teaching and Learning Resource Center in Plainview, New York educates both parents and children.

Unlike other learning centers that provide educational support in all subject areas, Literacy Builders specializes in reading and writing. Staffed by reading specialists and expert teachers, Literacy Builders begins with understanding a child’s reading and writing abilities. A comprehensive evaluation assesses and identifies difficulties a child may have with reading fluency, decoding, and comprehension or with generating and developing ideas for writing, spelling, and other written conventions. This information is used to create the Reading or Writing Rx, a custom-tailored plan that targets a child’s individual learning goals.

Research has shown that in order to improve children’s reading and writing ability, they need explicit and systematic instruction. Literacy Builder’s Executive Director, Kim Yaris, is a veteran classroom teacher and literacy consultant. She has been creating programs that train teachers how to improve reading and writing instruction in the classroom and has now brought this expertise to the Literacy Builders Teaching and Learning Resource Center. According to Mrs. Yaris, “Literacy is the cornerstone to educational success. When reading and writing are constantly hard work, children learn to hate doing both. We specialize in figuring out what ‘hard’ is. We start with what children can do and build their repertoire of strategies from there. We want to cultivate a love for reading and writing. When children like what they are doing, they are inclined to do it more often. The more children read and write, the better they become at it.”

Increased time spent reading books that match a child’s independent reading level is the core of the Literacy Builders approach. By using books, magazines, poems, plays, and newspapers from the extensive in-house library, children are able to practice important reading goals including fluency, decoding, and comprehension without ever completing a skill and drill worksheet. Real reading materials help to generate greater interest in and passion for learning to read.

Literacy Builders offers a wide range of services for children in grades pre-K-12. Free consultations help parents decide what kind of intervention their child may need. Whether it be intense one-on-one tutoring or small group reading or writing clinics, Literacy Builders makes expert guidance in reading and writing affordable for everybody. They also provide parent training seminars that highlight effective learning strategies and give parents ongoing information about their child’s progress.

The Literacy Builders Teaching and Learning Resource Center located in Suite 309 at 88 Sunnyside Boulevard in Plainview, New York is an inviting, child centered environment that inspires children to want to read and write. With books displayed throughout the reception area and each of the individual classrooms, children can’t help but want to read.

Making a difference sometimes requires being different. Literacy Builders is a different approach to helping children become better readers and writers.

Visit our website, https://www.literacy-builders.com/, to find out how.