YALSA is seeking a Member Manager for its upcoming web resource, Teen Programming HQ, The mission of the new site is to provide a one-stop-shop for finding and sharing information about library programs of all kinds for and with teens. The site will promote best practices in programming by featuring user-submitted programs that align with YALSA’s Teen Programming Guidelines and Futures Report. The site will also enable dissemination of timely information about emerging and new practices for teen programming; raise awareness about appropriate YALSA tools to facilitate innovation in teen programming; and provide a means for members and the library community to connect with one another to support and display their efforts to continuously improve their teen programs. The site is expected to have a soft launch in July and a full launch in September. Please note that web developers have been contracted with to build the site. The Member Manager is not expected to have any web site design or development responsibilities.

The Member Manager will work with YALSA's Communications Specialist to ensure the site is relevant, interactive, engaging and meeting member needs for information about innovation in teen programming, as well as participates in the maintenance of the site and work within the guidelines for the site as set by the YALSA Board of Directors. The Member Manager assists with the recruitment of experts and the collection of content for the site; generates ideas for direction and content; helps obtain, analyze and use member and library community feedback about the site; assists with marketing; and assists with ensuring programming related activities, news and resources from YALSA are integrated in the site, and vice versa.

List of Qualifications for the Member Manager:

1. Strong project management and organizational skills
2. Ability to delegate work and to manage a variety of contributors and volunteers
3. Dynamic, self-motivated individual
4. Excellent verbal and written communications skills
5. Experience in web site maintenance
6. Ability to set and meet deadlines
7. Knowledge of best practices in teen programming, as outlined in YALSA’s Teen Programming Guidelines and Futures Report
8. Ability to work well in a team environment
9. Ability to work well in a mostly virtual setting, including using tools such as Google Drive, Google Calendar, Skype, etc. to coordinate work and communicate with others
10. Membership in YALSA and a passion for YALSA’s mission
11. High ethical standards and no real or perceived conflict of interest with YALSA or its portfolio of print and web publications

General Member Manager Responsibilities:

Oversight & Coordination

• For the inaugural year of the site, work with the Communications Specialist to create and implement systems and processes to ensure efficient oversight, promotion and integration of the site and database. Make adjustments as needed
• For the inaugural year of the site, work with the expert panel to formalize the vetting process and create and utilize guidelines, standard messaging, etc. to create consistency with the vetting process. Make adjustments as needed
• Work with the Communications Specialist to recruit and vet experts to vet the program proposals, and submit recommendations to the President
• Communicate with the Communications Specialist on a regular basis in order to assign tasks, discuss marketing strategies, discuss site management, etc.
• Work with the blog managers and YALS and JRLYA editors as appropriate to coordinate dissemination of information to members and the library community.
• Maintain communication with YALSA member groups whose work relates to teen programming
• Follow all established policies and guidelines, enforce them as necessary and periodically conduct a review of them to ensure currency
• Direct questions about sponsorships, advertising, etc. to YALSA’s Executive Director
• Write reports prior to the Annual Conference and Midwinter Meeting for submission to the YALSA Board

Seek Out & Manage Content & Contributors

• Provide oversight to the panel of experts to make sure the quality of program submissions is acceptable complies with YALSA’s Teen Programming Guidelines and Futures Report
• With the Communications Specialist recruit contributors on a regular basis
• Effectively motivate, support and manage a group of volunteers
• Manage a strategy to deal with comments and spam daily in order to guarantee that the site content is appropriate

Promotion

• Seek out opportunities to recruit contributors and inform the library community about the site
• Answer questions and inquiries about the site in a timely fashion
• Work with the YALSA Website Advisory Board and the Communications Specialist to create cross-promotion of all YALSA's web presences
• Utilize social media to increase awareness of the site and its content

Technical Maintenance

• Work with YALSA’s Communications Specialist as appropriate to update and manage software
• Monitor new technologies and their potential to impact the site, and make recommendations to the Communications Specialist, as appropriate

YALSA Communications Specialist Responsibilities:

• Communicates regularly with Member Manager to provide support and facilitate work
• Works with the site developer and the ALA IT Dept. as needed on technical issues
• Handles all financial transactions for the site
• Promotes the site through appropriate venues
• Coordinates efforts and facilitates communication among all YALSA publications, including the blogs and journals
• Manages the site software, including liaising with the developer and ALA’s IT Dept. to troubleshoot technical issues
• Ensure site guidelines and policies are complied with
• Oversee the recruitment process for Member Managers, as needed

The Member Manager will be selected by the YALSA Executive Committee by August 1, 2015. The term of the appointment is one year beginning in August 2015, with an option to renew for a second year, based on performance. The Member Manager will receive an honorarium of $500 per year plus $500 towards travel to each Annual Conference and Midwinter Meeting while serving as Member Manager. Candidates must send a cover letter and resume, which includes project management, teen programming, marketing and website maintenance experiences to [email protected]. All resumes, etc. must be submitted via email. The deadline for submission is July 1, 2015. Please note that this is not a salaried staff position, but a member volunteer opportunity. Please direct questions to Anna Lam at [email protected]

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I’d like to ever-so-gently suggest a best practice for agents to consider. Writer friends, see what you think of this.

In case you’re not familiar, a best practice is a method or technique that has consistently shown superior results. This method can then be used to create a standard way of doing things. Best practices are identified in manufacturing, health care, agriculture and laboratory science, so why not literary representation? I mean, really, why the heck not?

I’m in the midst of my first full-on agent search and I’m experiencing a fairly new practice agents have adopted regarding query responses. In lieu a personal email or even a form rejection, agents specify the number of weeks a query will be under consideration. If no response is received in that time, the author should consider the query declined. I can understand this practice. Really, I can. Like editors, agents are incredibly busy people who need to make the most efficient use of their time. Devoting fewer hours to follow-up on queries that hold no interest equates to more time to devote to clients, networking, considering queries (and hopefully dining, showering and sleeping).

But here’s where I think this no reply practice can be refined into a best practice–I would love to see it become an industry standard to provide an automated confirmation of receipt to all email queries. Receiving this kind of response would let someone like me know, okay, the meter’s running now. She really got my query. I’ll wait six weeks per her guidelines. If there’s no reply, I’ll move on. Without such a receipt, it leaves room for nagging, festering, niggling doubt–what if she never got my email and that’s why she’s not responding. Should I check in even though she says not to? Of course, some authors do, and that just adds to the agent’s Mt. Everest of emails.

To their credit, a number of the agents I’ve queried have provided an automated response. I offer my wholehearted thanks to those agents for practicing what I hope will become a best practice.

To be fair, we writers must do our part to uphold our best practices too, such as:

• Following an agent’s submission guidelines like we were assembling a nuclear warhead. No fudging on the details.
• Always, always, always being polite, kind and respectful at all points of contact with an agent. Just like proper spelling and punctuation, professionalism matters.
• Abiding by the agent’s follow-up rules—if he says to check in after 8 weeks, then do it. If he says no word from me in 6 weeks equals a pass, then it’s a pass. Don’t stand there fogging up the glass. Git along little dogie.

So, that’s it. That’s what I want to suggest–oh so gently–to agents. Thank you again to the best practice practitioners. You are appreciated.

And as for my writer friends, just because you’re cute as a button on a ladybug’s vest, I want to give you this. Go ahead. Open it. It’s helpful.

You’re welcome.

I wish to be cremated. One-tenth of my ashes shall be given to my agent, as written in our contract. ~ Groucho Marx

 

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In our lives as busy and distracted librarians, it’s easy to get sucked into always keeping that running list in our minds.  You know the one.  It has all of those “to-do” tasks on it that have to get done in the next 2 hours, shift, day, week and month.  I know that I always have several balls in the air and am trying to stay ahead of the game.  It often leads to worrying about what’s next rather than being present in the task at hand.

I was speaking with a teacher about this not so long ago, and she told me about a mindfulness workshop she had attended.  She told me that it had not only helped her practice as an educator, but she was using the techniques with her students and it was making a difference in their lives at school as well.

I started looking around the web for some articles not only just on mindfulness, but on mindfulness in the practice of librarianship as well.  Here are some links have proven helpful to me as I begin to slow down, take a breath and be present in my practice.

Mindfulness for Librarians, by Devin Zimmerman

Insights and Practical Tips on Practicing Mindful Librarianship to Manage Stress, by Kristen Mastel and Genvieve  Innes

Mindfulness 101, posted by The Nocturanal Librarian

The Resource Page from The Mindfulness in Education Network

Of course this takes time. And our connected lives give us some hard habits to break.  I am typing this up while at the breakfast table, with several tabs open at once! I hope that you will consider adding some mindful practice to your days.

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This month-long series of blog posts will explain author websites and offer tips and writing strategies for an effective author website. It alternates between a day of technical information and a day of writing content. By the end of the month, you should have a basic author website up and functioning. The Table of Contents lists the topics, but individual posts will not go live until the date listed. The Author Website Resource Page offers links to tools, services, software and more.

Way back in the first week, of the month, I suggested that you go and look at the websites of other authors in your genre. Now that you’re almost done with your site, go back and look around again and this time, see what else you need to tweak. Which author websites you admire the most? Which do you–as a fan–visit the most often? What do you GO BACK for? That’s the real question–what will keep a fan coming back to your site? How do the websites stack up against the Codex checklist?

Start looking for author websites here:

• Society of Children’s Bookwriters and Illustrators (SCBWI.org) Speaker’s Bureau
• Romance Writers
• Alliance of Independent Authors
• Author’s Guild

Last time: Author Website Planning Checklist

Where on your website did you include these things? List all the appropriate page(s). Can you add something now?

Exclusive unpublished writing: ______________________
Author Schedules: ________________________________
Author’s Literary Tastes:___________________________
Insider Information: _______________________________
Freebies: ________________________________________
Regular Contact: __________________________________
Contests, puzzles, teacher’s guides, book club discussion guides, puzzles, playlists, coloring pages, etc.__________________________________

In other words–don’t launch before you are ready! Take the time to get it right before you let the world know that your website is live!

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Now is the time to do a check of your site to make sure you’ve covered everything!
If you feel like you’re lacking in some area, then click on the link and re-read the appropriate post.
Or go back to the Table of Contents to review material.

General Good Practices for a Website

1. In 3 seconds, can a reader figure out where they are and what they can do here?
2. Is there a search box on every page so readers can find what they need?
3. Is the site attractive, easy to read–a clean usable design?
4. Do you use great titles on your posts so they will be found by search engines?
5. Does every page have a Call to Action?
6. Are your social media links easy to spot and use on every page?
7. Have you clicked on every link to make sure they work?
8. Did you include a way for people to contact you through a form or by email?
9. Are you tracking statistics for your site?
10. Did you include a privacy page? Are you COPPA Compliant?





What readers want from the Codex study

Remember that you have choices about which page will hold this info. Where did you put these things that readers want?

11. Is your ABOUT page interesting and fun, yet informative?
12. Did you include a downloadable bibliography and/or biography?
13. Have you provided exclusive writing only published on your website?
14. Is your Author schedule listed and UP TO DATE?
15. Are you letting readers know something about your literary tastes?
16. Have you provided any freebies or bling for your fans?
17. Do you have a newsletter or someway for fans to connect and stay connected?
18. Did you include any of these: contests, puzzles, and games, with prizes like autographed copies of books?
19. Are you providing a way for readers to buy your books, either on your site or through a link to an online bookseller?
20. If you have series, do you provide a list that explains the order for reading that series?
21. Are your recent books on the Home page, or easy to find?

PET PEEVES: Why Readers Hate an Author’s Website

DearAuthor.com has a great post on the Top Ten Peeves From Booksellers and Readers about Author Websites. I’ve summarized the list, but you should read the whole article. Insightful.

22. No printable list of your books.
23. No ISBNs.
24. Series not identified and books not put into a series list.
25. No contact author on front page
26. Having to hunt for most recent releases.
27. No list of future releases.
28. No list of awards.
29. No links to order.
30. Not friendly.
31. Nothing to bring the reader back.

How are you doing? Is your website stacking up? What’s the hardest/easiest thing you’ve done on your site this month? What would you add to this checklist?

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Nook Kindle PDF iTunes on the iPad, look for it in the iBook Store

In a previous post, one commenter said, “I’d love to know how to get on listservs or good blogs to connect to more librarians.” How do you find places to plug-in online?

No one can give YOU a specific list of places, because there are too many variables. Your book, your interests, your career goals–these will determine where you should plug in. But there are some general ideas that might help.

Subject Specific Listservs or Forums. You can start by looking up listservs or forums that specifically focus on the topic of your book. Let’s use two examples: an elementary nonfiction about birds, and a YA problem novel about alcoholism. Start with the obvious: Audubon Society and Al-Anon. These national organizations may have listservs that discuss topics of interest; or they may have magazines you could write for. But also look for local/regional listservs. On search engines, look for listserv and then “birds,” “Ornithology,” and so on. Also, look for trade or professional organizations to see if they have listservs. You may have to join the National Science Teachers Association, but if you’re writing science books for kids, you should do that anyway!

Audience Specific Listservs or Forums. Likewise, if the most important thing about your writing is the audience you serve–you only write YA books–then look for listservs discussing YAs. Here, you are putting the emphasis on the fact that your teen novel about alcoholism is written for teens. The issue of alcohol is secondary, so you’re not looking for AAA or Al-Anon groups. In the short run, you might be tempted to join these groups for a while after a book is published, but the question is how long can you keep it up? Will your next book also be right for AAA or Al-Anon? If not, then it makes sense to join the YA group instead. Build relationships for the future,not around periphery issues that you can’t sustain over the long haul.

Genre Specific Listservs or Forums. Finally, you might look for listservs and forums that focus on a certain genre: fantasy, science fiction, mysteries, historical fiction, nonfiction, etc.

I joined a state-wide birding listserv for a while, but ultimately, that wasn’t where my heart was. Now, I am on local and national librarians listservs, a better place for me with my long-term goals. Where should you be, considering your long term goals? How can you participate in this community in a meaningful way (NOT just with promos)?

Good practices for Participating in a Listserv

What do you do once you’ve located a few appropriate listservs? First, familiarize yourself with any special guidelines this listserv has.

1. Know the group’s guidelines. Know what this particular listserv considers polite or rude. Some require you to use your whole name, location and job description in a signature, while others are more informal. When you join, you should receive guidelines, so read them and obey them.
2. Use a Sig. Make sure you load up your email signature with goodies. Here’s my current sig:
   

   –
   www.darcypattison.com
   BOOKS: DESERT BATHS (Sylvan Dell)
   NSTA-Outstanding Science Trade Books 2013 list
   “intriguing combination of biology and earth science” KIRKUS reviews
   “will hold children’s interest on many levels” SLJ reviews
   Spanish version: LAS DUCHAS EN EL DESIERTO
   WISDOM, THE MIDWAY ALBATROSS “. . .a bird bio that’s easy to distinguish from the flock.”
   Elizabeth Bird, Fuse#8 Blog, SLJ

3. Post only when it is appropriate. When you go to a cocktail party, you don’t collar every person and shove a book in their face. Same here. Take a month to see where conversations go and think about how you can join in (and let your sig do the promo work for you) with helpful information or interesting comments.
4. Set to DIGEST. Most listservs use a common set of commands that let you control your subscription. I always set my subscriptions to DIGEST, so they collect a bunch of messages and send them as one. At the top of a DIGEST is usually a Table of Contents. When I get a message (and one listserv I am on sends out a dozen Digests per day), I scan the TOC for anything of interest. Nothing there? I delete. About once or twice a week, there is a post about something that I can answer and I’ll send a private message to that person. About once a month or so, I’ll post a message to the whole group, making sure that it is NOT just a promo about my book(s), but it’s something interesting and helpful to the group at large. In other words, I try to participate in the community in a helpful way.

What do you think about listservs and forums? Are you a member of a couple and does it help promote your books over all?

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Jaclyn DeForge, our Resident Literacy Expert, began her career teaching first and second grade in the South Bronx, and went on to become a literacy coach and earn her Masters of Science in Teaching. In her column she offers teaching and literacy tips for educators.

Whether doing a Read Aloud, facilitating a Guided Reading group, or asking students to respond to their Independent Reading, the follow-up questions you ask AFTER students respond are just as important as the initial question you pose.

The most highly effective teachers I’ve ever worked with always ask some variation of the following questions after each answer:

• Why do you think that?
• How do you know?
• How did you figure that out?

One of my favorite parts of the Common Core Standards comes on page 7, where the authors talk about the traits of the college-/career-ready student, and assert that such a student values evidence:

“Students cite specific evidence when offering an oral or written interpretation of a text. They use relevant evidence when supporting their own points in writing and speaking, making their reasoning clear to the reader or listener, and they constructively evaluate others’ use of evidence.”

Asking follow-up questions consistently makes evidence-gathering a healthy reading habit.

Whether the student response is correct or in need of some redirection, asking a follow-up question is crucial for several reasons:

1. If the answer is correct, it allows students who may have been confused (unbeknownst to you) to hear how the responding student found the answer.

2. If the answer is incorrect, it gives you, the instructor, an idea of where that wrong answer came from and, in turn, what questions to ask that redirect the student back on the right path.

3. Asking follow-up questions opens the floor for students to demonstrate alternate ways of thinking.  Sometimes there are multiple paths to a “right” answer, and asking one student to explain his or her thinking encourages others to share a different way of arriving at the same conclusion.

4. Teachers are not and should not be the sole bestowers of knowledge in the classroom.  For some students, concepts click faster when explained by classmates.  An ideal classroom environment is one where everyone is learning and growing, and asking follow-up questions allows students to also play the role of teacher, sharing knowledge, ideas, solutions and understanding with their peers.

What are your favorite follow-up questions to ask during your literacy block? Drop me an email at [email protected] or share yours in the comments! 

Filed under: Curriculum Corner, Resources Tagged: best practices, common core standards, follow-up questions, reading, Reading Aloud, reading comprehension

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By John A. Neuenschwander

Last fall the Oral History Association approved a new set of ethical guidelines.  The goal of the task force that prepared the new General Principles for Oral History and Best Practices for Oral History was to provide a more condensed and usable set of guidelines.  The leadership of the Association stressed that the new ethical guidelines would be reviewed periodically to determine if they needed to be amended and/or expanded.  To that end President Michael Frisch recently invited oral historians to join in an online dialogue via the Social Network which can be found on the OHA website.  There will also be a session on the new Principles and Best Practices at the annual meeting of the Association in Atlanta on Saturday, October 30th from 12:00 p.m. to 1:15 p.m. in Room CR 123.

The new Principles and Best Practices like ethic codes of most academic disciplines or fields are intended to help practitioners avoid unprofessional conduct and more indirectly the legal difficulties than can arise from serious ethical lapses.  Some of the suggested practices and procedures in the new Principles and Best Practices are clearly law based while others are derived solely from ethical considerations.   The focus of this is blog is not any specific section of the new code but rather on the absence of any guidelines on the legal standing of interviewers.

From a legal standpoint, there is clearly no seminal court case or specific section of the Copyright Act that designates an interviewer as a joint author.  Despite the absence of any black letter law, there are a number of impressive sources that point to the very real possibility that interviewers are in fact joint authors.  The most telling support for this position comes from the U.S. Copyright Office.  According to their policy manual, Compendium II, “A work consisting of an interview often contains copyrightable authorship by the person interviewed and the interviewer. Each owns the expression the absence of an agreement to the contrary.”   There is also at least one lower court decision and several copyright experts who support the position of the Copyright Office.

The point of all this is that the new guidelines should include some reference to the possible copyright interest of interviewers for both ethical and legal reasons.   Perhaps the best was to do this would be to add a new Principle: Interviewers may also hold a copyright interest in the interviews that they conduct and should always be so informed by the program or archive for which they work or volunteer of their potential rights. Programs and archives who utilized interviewers who are not full-time employees must insure that such interviewers understand the extent of their rights to the interview before they are asked to sign a release.  Interviewers should also receive appropriate acknowledgement for their work in all forms of citation and usage.

John A. Neuenschwander is professor emeritus of history at Carthage College and a municipal judge for the City of Kenosha, Wisconsin. He is the author of A Guide to Oral History and the Law and lectures nationwide on the legal aspects of oral history.

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 Calling All Teachers:  I Need To Hear Your Voice

Since the school year finished, I've been hearing lots of complaints from families about assigned reading taking all the fun out of summer experiences with books.  There are two camps:

1) the parents who kids love to read and will read all summer but feel "constrained" by a book list, required reports to "prove" their reading or assignments during the vacation months.  These moms and dads are telling me that making reading an "assignment" creates an environment where children see it as a chore rather than an adventure.

2) families who don't have a personal connection to the importance of reading for recreation during the summer to protect the reading gains a child has experienced during the school year.  For these families, reading is also a labor, not a pleasure, an assigned task that someone always seems to slip through the cracks with other time demands and distractions.

What Do Researchers and Experts Say?


There are several studies relating to this topic but one I find helpful in addressing our first group is from the American Library Association.   Their findings took into consideration both teacher and student perspective.  This study also provides insight into the use of technology. 

Did you know that there is a research brief on a website called Summerlearning.org?   These ideas began at John Hopkins and you'll find plenty here to raise your level of understanding.  And June 21 of this year, they are sponsoring a Summer Learning Day.  You can visit their website and share your ideas or read to the end of this blog where you'll find a free, grassroots way to touch a child.

Reading is Fundamental, so often in touch with the communities that surround our at-risk populations also comes through with an interesting article entitled A Primer on Summer Learning Loss.  What I appreciated in this article are not only the statistics about summer reading loss which we all know too well but the solutions framed from real schools and school districts.  Duplicating best practices for those who have gone before us AND been successful is one of the best resources we have.

Kids are making a splash with reading in Kansas this summer.  I think any student would find at least one activity at their local library that they would enjoy.

Even Michelle Obama is speaking up on this issue.  Regardless of her husband's politics, she's taking her stand against obesity and pairing it with the idea that summertime is reading time.  Learn more about her support of United We Serve's Let's Read, Let's Move initiative.

Here's a novel idea:  take the ideas from this research and make them a part of a short "mini-study" for yourself, a personal investment in your own professional development this summer.  It will put you in a posi

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Yesterday, I was talking with a friend of mine who related 
a simple story to me which bears repeating.

As a storyteller, my friend often visits schools with no more than her voice and her body, charged with the task of entertaining and engaging students with stories for 30 minutes.  She is superb at what she does and, after her presentation, she overheard this conversation.

"I just don't get it," said one teacher to another.

"What?"

"We have all kinds of bells and whistles, quick response exercises, hand and sound signals, technology and yet our kids are always all over the place.  This lady comes in with her voice and a story and suddenly then are mesmerized.  What's with that?"

What is Engagement?

Now certainly familiarity may be a part of this equation but I believe the question is worth pondering.  I also see it, not so much as a judgement of tools, but as a question - how do I engage my students?  Certainly with our tech savvy children of today, our various technology tools are important.  But there is something deeper behind whether those tools work in classrooms or not.  The real questions are

"What authentic teaching can I do that will capture their interest?": 

"Am I so much on the "delivery" channel that I've forgotten the power of teaching?"

The topic is certainly a bit broader than literacy but I see literacy as the doorway to engaging students. What about you?

Michigan State University's National Center for Research on Teacher Learning attacks the issue with some important information:  "Faced with the concerns for classroom time and "effective" use of it, can put difficult demands on teachers.  What it often comes down to is how good are we at helping students construct meaning, including having time to discuss and explore?

Take that back to literacy.  

Are we so into "drill and skill" - repeat the rule back fast - that we forget that education includes thinking?  I've met children who are compliant word callers and decoders but they don't have a clue of how to use reading as a tool to get information they need, to analyze and synthesize what is presented in the text.  Here are a few literacy-related questions to think about in your own teaching:

1.  Do you use read-alouds daily to engage and foster thinking about text?  Engaged Interactive Read Aloud techniques, covered in my new book Before They Read, are a most efficient means of exposing to student what great readers do when they read).

2.  Do you let the size of the class keep you on the "controlling" channel instead of the learning, exploring channel with students?  Professo

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I'm a regular follower of Dr. Catherine Snow's work at Harvard's Family Research Project.  When I talk with everyday teachers, I always hear strong feelings that family engagement might be a good thing but who has the time with all the other requirements and pressured placed on educators.  Do you feel like that?

Let me suggest a different perspective. 

Consider that every time you effectively engage families in their children's learning, you lessen your workload.  You expand the horizons of a student and, especially among those who are termed "at-risk", you foster an extra level of intervention; you find a new resource for helping you bring more children to competency in the standards you are required to teach and in benchmarking those important assessments.

The secret is not to expect the parent to do what you do.  Meet them where they are, not where you want them to be.  That mostly just takes a little thinking time.

Families have important but unique roles, especially when it comes to literacy.   Early elementary school teachers have a special job since they are often the first face of education new parents in the school meet.  Take a little time to get to know your students' families early in the year and resist the temptation to write off those who don't come to the first open house.  Find out through a simple survey or a brief 1-2 minute chat what questions they have about their children's learning and what their goals are for their child.

A tiered, systematic approach works best, no matter what grade you teach.  


For those that come to the school regularly and are comfortable, all you really need to do is to provide resources (books, a BIT of information about what assessment results mean and areas that they might help their child with at home).  They will take that information and run with it.

Tier I 2:

Send a personal note to every parent who wasn't able to attend.  You can get inexpensive, custom designed postcards or even business-card sized notes from Vistaprint (they even run specials where you can get as many as 100 postcards free, only paying shipping). 

In that note, voice your genuine regret that they were not able to come and share some small tidbit of information that they can use at home. It might just be that the family wanted to be there but they had a sick child, couldn't get a ride to the school or had to work.  Don't assume that an absent face is an uninterested one.  You're beginning to build a positive face for your classroom and your school.  Remember that busy or stressed families need regular encouragement to move them toward engagement.

Tier #3:

Determine that you will continue to send positive encouraging messages, even when y

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What makes a good children's book? I'd suppose that's a tough question to answer, otherwise Microsoft would have already written Newbery Notebook 1.0 and Caldecott Creator for Windows. A good children's book is far from formulaic.

What use is this list to the average classroom teacher?

• It may help you understand why some books win with children while others fail. The list explains, for example, why a common literary motif of many children's novels (Harry Potter, Lord of the Flies, Narnia, Holes) is the removal of the protagonist (and other main characters) from adult supervision and control.
• The individual attributes may help you create some connections between otherwise unrelated texts. One successful exercise with every novel, for example, is looking at how a character grows or changes over time. I've used this approach with Number the Stars, Because of Winn Dixie, Crash, Flipped, and Island of the Blue Dolphins to name just a few. Check out this sample recording sheet.
• The list can be used a fairly accurate indicator of a book's overall value when teachers must choose just two or three titles for study. Many teachers, for example, complain that their boys just don't "get into" books which fe
  1 Comments on What Makes a Good Children's Book?, last added: 1/2/2010
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  Theresa Milstein said, on 1/2/2010 10:56:00 AM
  

  I like your list of book. As an assistant, I ran reading groups over a number of years, and found that a strong character that males or females could relate to was more important than the sex of the character. I read, Because of Winn Dixie to a mixed group, and all got into it. But a book like, Princess Academy would only work with a girls' group because of the subject matter.

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I noticed that many readers to this blog ended up here from Google after searching for "list of reading skills using picture books" or some similar term. Often it's a more defined search, such as "prediction skills using picture books." While I've certainly offered lots of skills-based resources and suggestions over the past year, I was never one to provide such lists. Until now.

Rather than reinvent the wheel, I did a little poking around and found exactly what I was looking for. Nancy Keane (with the help of many others) created a wiki, organizing books by genre, topic, and value, as well as recommended grade level. It's an impressive list, and a great start.

But what many readers seek are "reading skills and strategies," and this was a listing I saw lacking. I therefore started a Focused Reading Skills List at this wiki. Already, with just the few books I've added, I can see that this list is likely to outgrow its single page format, but we'll worry about that when we get there.

So I absolutely encourage you to bookmark and share this page with colleagues. I also ask for your help in making it a truly awesome resource: please sign up for wiki spaces (at the upper right corner of the Focused Reading Skills page) and then help me edit the page by adding your favorite picture books. The whole idea behind wikis is that they're cooperative, growing documents, and this is perhaps one of the best examples of a wiki that would benefit from multiples authors and perspectives.

Email me if you add some titles or skills, or if you have questions about how to go about doing so. Through a community effort, we can create a pretty powerful resource for ourselves and others!

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