Connecting Readers and Writers to the Word: National Book Lovers Day

Today, let’s celebrate National Book Lovers Day! As you know, I love books. However, the books I read most often are children’s picture books and chapter books for fourth and fifth graders. I study children’s picture books similar to the stories I write or want to write, in order to expand my writing skills. As […]

Children’s Bookroom: SUMMER READING PROGRAMS

This summer, continue to encourage your child to read during the school break by enrolling them in a summer reading program. There are many incentives,  including freebies! Register your child for a  summer reading program and take advantage of the activities and events that will keep your kids busy. Some summer program activities and events […]

Children’s Bookroom: CREATING YOUR OWN LITERACY EVENT

As parents, teachers, and librarians, it takes a little creativity to encourage and motivate children to read. I would like to provide a few tips to inspire your young readers. Visit the National Day Calendar (http://www.nationaldaycalendar.com) for interesting themes to celebrate. You can locate themes by the day, week, and/or month. For example, yesterday, January […]

Children’s Bookroom: Encouraging Young Readers

In kindergarten, I took my reading textbook home without permission. My newfound love for reading proved to have been greater than the fear of my teacher finding out my little secret. I also fibbed to my parents and told them my homework assignment existed within the pages of that Dick and Jane Reader. All evening, […]

Children’s Bookroom: I Can’t Find a Book!

Many times over the years, as a teacher-librarian, students visited the library and left empty handed. Some students wandered back and forth from the fiction to the non-fiction sections of the library, to the online catalog, and back to the shelves again. When observing the student’s indecisiveness, I would ask the child if I could […]

Children’s Bookroom: Books That Tell, Inform, Teach, and Explain

Early in my career as a teacher-librarian, I regretfully encouraged younger students to read only fiction books. I steered them away from non-fiction because I saw informational texts (Common Core term) as uninteresting compared to works of fiction. I also believed that lower grade students would not be able to handle or understand informational texts. […]