The Williamsburg Area Reading Council is a non-profit, educational organization for all individuals in the Williamsburg, VA area who are interested in reading, reading research, and the teaching of reading at all levels.
The first meeting of WARC will feature children’s author and literacy expert extraordinaire Lester Laminack!
Lester’s presentations are renowned for inspiring, motivating, and deepening
teachers’ knowledge base of best literacy practices. You don’t want to miss
this special PD opportunity!
Win a school visit from Lester!
The Williamsburg area school with the highest percentage of WARC members will win a school visit from Lester! Go to: www.warcira.blogspot.com for membership information or contact membership chair Robin Ford at fordr@wjcc.k12.va.us and join now.
The deadline for memberships to count for the school visit is September 9th.
Don’t miss this wonderful opportunity!
Join WARC now and we hope to see you on September 24
Like many
teachers, one of the things I love most about summer is the opportunity to
catch up on my reading. Actually, I read all the time, so summer brings the
opportunity to read even more and for longer periods of time (on the beach with
a cold drink!). Unfortunately, for many students, summer brings a significant achievement
loss due to lack of summer reading. In a new book titled, Summer
Reading: Closing the Rich/Poor Reading Achievement Gap, authors Richard
Allington and Anne McGill-Franzen (2013) state that summer reading loss
accounts for roughly 80% of the rich/poor reading achievement gap.
Poor
children do not read because they have much more restricted access to books at
home and in their communities (Neuman & Celano, 2012). However, in a recent
study we demonstrated that simply providing children from low income families
with self-selected books for summer reading eliminated summer reading loss and
spurred reading gains comparable to those experienced by middle class children
(Allington, McGill-Franzen, Camilli, et al.,2010) (p. 10).
In the following video, Richard
Allington talks about excellent teachers and summer reading loss.
Fortunately, there are steps teachers can take to alleviate summer
reading loss.
Distribute books to children from
low-income families. There are many ways to find funding for purchasing books
to give to children to read over the summer such as those listed here.
Give students choice in the books they
read over the summer. Self-selection is a powerful motivator. Read this blog
post by fourth grade teacher Colby Sharp on how he used a “speed dating”
approach to help students find books they want to read over the summer
Provide information to parents about
summer reading opportunities at the local library and encourage students to
participate. Scholastic
also has a summer reading challenge for students.
Provide opportunities for students to
discuss books with each other through online book discussions. Read this blog
post about how one school used the social media site Edmoto for summer
reading book discussions.
References
Allington,
R., McGill-Franzen, A. (2013). Summer reading: Closing the rich/poor reading
achievement gap. Newark: IRA.
Allington,
R., McGill-Franzen, A., Camilli, G., Williams, L., Graff, J., Zeig, J., Zmach,
C. & Nowak, R. (2010). Addressing summer reading setback among economically
disadvantaged elementary students. Reading Psychology, 31(5), 411–427.
Neuman, S.
B., & Celano, D. C. (2012). Giving our children a fighting chance:
Poverty, illiteracy, and the development of information capital. New York:
Teachers College Press.
Saturday, February 23, 2013
The next WARC meeting
March 26th @ Warhill High School
5:30 p.m.
Writing Across the Curriculum
The first half of the meeting will be a presentation on writing across the curriculum by Nicole Throckmorton, co-director of the Eastern Virginia Writing Project and English teacher at Warhill High School.
Gallery Walk
The second half of the meeting will be a gallery walk. Several pPresenters will discuss topics such as blogging in the classroom, Skyping with an author, early writing strategies, writing notebooks and NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). Attendees rotate around the room to the presentations they want to learn more about!
There will be door prizes, food, and lots of networking!
Each person who brings a book for our homeless project will be entered twice for door prizes.
Right next door
to the College of William & Mary Bookstore on Duke of Gloucester Street
November 29, 2012
5:30-7:00pm
Join us for an evening of booktalks by Williamsburg area teachers
featuring exciting new titles you should be using in your classrooms now to
teach reading and writing!
K-3
booktalk by Wendy Lucy, Matthew Whaley
4-7
booktalk by Kathie Eichfeld, Williamsburg Regional Library
Middle/High
school booktalk by Lee DeGroft, Jamestown High School
SPECIAL OFFER on this evening only for those
who attend!
20% discount on available book talk titles
& other great titles at the Barnes & Noble tables.These tables will be set up at Bruton Parish
just for this special evening!!
Four
$25 Barnes & Noble gift cards will be given away.
Special drawing
for guests who come with a friend - $50 Barnes & Noble gift card!!!!
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The Williamsburg area school with the highest percentage of WARC members will win a school visit from Lester! Go to: www.warcira.blogspot.com for membership information or contact membership chair Robin Ford at fordr@wjcc.k12.va.us and join now.
