Science and Art E Classroom Reading Corner

Every teacher has one. A story well-nigh a kid who wouldn't read. A kid consumed with video games or other distractions, who just couldn't meet how reading can calorie-free a powerful fire inside.

For Julia Dudley-Haley '11, M.Due south. '14, his proper noun was Antwon, a star football player in her class at Appomattox Middle School who had never read for pleasure, with a predictable effect on his prospects for hereafter bookish success.

A former science instructor-turned reading specialist (a Longwood professor had encouraged and helped with the transition), Dudley-Haley plant the traditional techniques went nowhere. One-on-one conversations, gentle encouragement—cipher worked. And Antwon was inappreciably lone in Dudley-Haley's class, where—every bit so often, these days— reading seemed overwhelmed by the relentless competition for students' shortening attending spans.

"Teachers—especially reading teachers—are up against major challenges everywhere they turn," said Dudley-Haley, now the divisionwide heart-school literacy coach for the city of Lynchburg. "Antwon was like a lot of kids, not only distracted by video games, sports and friends, but as well not realizing that there are books that tell stories he can connect to—that not every volume on the shelf is deadening or out of touch."

To reach him, Dudley-Haley knew she would have to dig deep into her own teaching experience and much of what she learned equally an undergraduate and graduate student at Longwood. She knew the respond would be function art, function science—and unique to Antwon, because every kid is unlike. Only she was determined to figure it out.

She was determined to make Antwon a reader.

IN It TO WIN It

It would exist easy to despair virtually the future of reading.

The pull of digital media is unrelenting, then is the seeming push to structure every moment of children'due south time in the classroom and beyond—play dates, sports practices, band camps. Reading books, a lonely and oft time-consuming human activity, is easily pushed aside.

Even as more than students graduate from high school, the national illiteracy rate has remained essentially unchanged for 20 years. An estimated 14-twenty per centum of the adult population reads at only an elementaryschool level. At home in Virginia, illiteracy rates in some of the most economically depressed regions approach a quarter of the adult population, making the school-to-prison house pipeline a stark reality: Prisons can predict with a fair amount of accuracy the number of beds they will need in the coming decades by examining the fourth-class literacy rate.

Only Longwood is hardly surrendering to the tide. In fact, it's becoming a leader in advancing the cause of childhood reading—in a broad range of interlocking endeavors. Nigh ii centuries after its founding, Longwood has grown widely beyond its teacher-training roots. But its various pathways into the teaching professions remain the largest programs on campus, and it remains a heart of excellence, highly regarded across the commonwealth as a wellspring of great teachers.

Longwood faculty research is on the cutting edge of international efforts to encourage reading and informs new and imaginative means the university is preparing the side by side generation. Getting preschool students ready to read" is a forepart-and-centre focus at Longwood's new babyhood evolution center, which opened in October.

And finally, in that location is Longwood's burgeoning partnership with the Virginia Children'southward Book Festival, which information technology hosts each October. The festival has brought close to 20,000 school children to campus, emerging in just iv brusque years as one of the premier children'south literature festivals anywhere.

"Reading is the most fundamental skill we can instill in a child," said Dr. Angelica Blanchette, assistant professor of education and co-coordinator of Longwood'south reading, literacy and learning graduate program. "It really is that simple. Information technology's the key to unlocking but about annihilation anyone ever wants to learn. Studies consistently show that children who can read on grade level and build an enjoyment of reading are healthier, happier and more than successful. That's why it'southward and then disquisitional that we not only written report the near enquiry-based techniques, but send out teachers—from pre-kindergarten to loftier school—who are equipped with that knowledge and the experience of putting it into practice. Too many learners come to our classrooms and don't see themselves equally readers. Longwood teachers and literacy specialists are prepared to tackle that challenge and are turning the tide one school, one classroom, one kid at a time."

_{LEUYEN PHAM, a first-time participant in the Virginia Children's Volume Festival this yr, is an award-winning author/illustrator of near sixty children's books. Her books include God's Dream, written by Archbishop Desmond Tutu; the New York Times best-selling serial Freckleface Strawberry, written by Julianne Moore; and Grace for President by Kelly DiPucchio. Some of her virtually contempo work can exist seen in the pages of Vamperina Ballerina.}

'Teachers—particularly reading teachers— are up against major challenges everywhere they plow.'

JULIA DUDLEY-HALEY '11, Chiliad.Southward. '14, Divisionwide Middle-School Literacy Coach, City of Lynchburg

DARING TO Exist Dissimilar

Ane of Dr. Katrina Maynard'due south favorite assignments for liberal studies students who hope to get elementary and centre-school teachers is request them to create a class presentation nigh how the 6 language structures—phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics—work independently and together to build literacy. "Every year, each group does something different," said Maynard, acquaintance professor of instruction and coordinator of the simple and centre-school pedagogy program. "Some represent the language structures every bit interlocking puzzle pieces, petals making up a complete flower or a blueprint of a house to explain the relationship betwixt concepts."

That diversity is precisely the point. "What'south really interesting is that information technology mirrors what they volition face in their own classrooms: a room full of children with different approaches to learning," she said. In their own coursework, Longwood students become a deep understanding of all the latest research and a grasp of literacy development in all its dimensions. Only in that location'due south ane big idea at the cut edge of teaching reading: an intensely personal approach that changes based on the skill level, personality and interests of each child in the classroom.

Thinking almost Antwon and his classmates, Dudley-Haley knew she had to develop a fresh way of approaching reading lessons that would allow her class to bloom. An thought took shape in her head: "book talks." "I allow my students choose the books they wanted to read, which is walking out on a limb that not a lot of teachers are willing to try," she said. "Only it's important, especially if we are going to adopt a culturally responsive approach. Then, as they read the books, nosotros worked in small-scale groups—where kids had similar literacy problems—to develop better skills using those books every bit the working text. And finally, I asked them to make a presentation and sell their book to their classmates."

Those presentations became the hot ticket in class: Anybody was chomping at the bit to pitch their text, using whatever means of expression they wanted. If information technology seems similar to Maynard'due south favorite lesson each year, that's because information technology is: Each student takes an private approach to evidence what they know nearly the book they just read.

For veteran teachers, in that location tin be natural skepticism most changing an approach that has been ingrained for and so long. In her current role as divisionwide literary motorcoach, it's a challenge Dudley-Haley faces frequently. "There was one teacher who was my biggest skeptic," she said.

She kept insisting in that location had to be a catch to guided reading—where students read in small groups so we can work on different skills. After I modeled the technique, we co-taught and she led a lesson by herself. She was most in tears when she told me there were kids in her form she heard read for the first time all twelvemonth. If she had never broken them into smaller guided reading groups, she'd never accept had the opportunity to hear them."

Of course, no corporeality of theory or conceptual learning is adequate without existent classroom experience. That'southward why every Longwood graduate who enters a classroom comes armed with more double the number of state-required field practicum hours.

That means micro-instruction in modest groups so pre-service teachers tin practice their lessons and incorporate peer and professor feedback. Information technology too means intense debriefing sessions with faculty members and other teachers afterwards each lesson to discuss what worked and what might exist done differently. And it means a chance to immediately practice the methods they are learning on campus—honing their skills to become more than effective teachers.

"In that location's a time-tested process where nosotros professors model electric current education methods, and so pre-service teachers reflect on those lessons earlier didactics their own lessons in a classroom," said Maynard. That process, repeated and repeated over years on campus, has given our alumni such firm footing in their own classrooms."

Veteran teachers will also tell you lot that reading starts before first grade. Children develop the habits of reading when parents read to them at night, and with the right preschool teachers. Longwood this autumn launched the Andy Taylor Center for Early Childhood Development, where preschool children from area families are encouraged to explore their surroundings according to their own interests. Alphabet principle and phonetic sensation are two primal parts of the pedagogy at the center.

But it's much more than some other preschool option for parents. Plans are to make the Taylor Center an important resource for Longwood students interested in becoming preschool teachers themselves. A proposed early childhood teacher preparation programme would extend to even younger children the model-reflection-educational activity process that has been then successful at Longwood for more than than a century.

WHEN AUTHORS ARE THE ROCK STARS

If y'all ever start to harbor doubts well-nigh the power of reading— to wonder if kids are all the same passionate about books and transformed by them—simply step onto Longwood's campus during the Virginia Children'south Book Festival.

They come by the thousands, brown-bag lunches often in hand, arriving on yellow school buses from beyond Virginia and—as of this year— North Carolina and other states, too.

They squeal with delight at the chance to come across in person the authors of the books many of them already know and love. The authors who speak, demonstrate and perform are a veritable "Who'southward Who" of children'south literature—Judy Blume; Arthur creator Marc Brown; recent Newbery and Caldecott award-winning artists like Matt de la Pena, Sophie Blackall and Javaka Steptoe; and inimitable and always-pop characters similar Todd Parr (author of The I Dearest You Book, The Earth Volume and The Thankful Book).

These authors bring their own expertise in getting kids to read. If Longwood's faculty are masters of the scientific discipline behind literacy, the VCBF is a vibrant festival celebrating the art—the artistic jolt of free energy—that is e'er part of the recipe of success.

"When I'm deciding what to write, I have to inhabit the infinite of a teenager, recalling those detail fears and sense of humour, and and then tell the truth of that experience," said Meg Medina, an honour-winning author whose 2016 young adult novel Burn Babe Burn down was named to the National Book Award longlist and who made her second appearance at the VCBF this year. "That'due south the tricky part: When we become adults, we desire childhood to be something different than it was. Information technology's not all learning how to ride a bike and building forts. And the more you lot tin can put your finger on what'south authentic about childhood, that's where the connection is."

To a person, these authors and illustrators say the key to success in getting kids to read is humor. Kids, after all, love to express mirth and play and exist surprised. It's how they deal with tense situations, serving as the valve on the pressure cooker in many situations.

Our brains, says Dr. Catherine Franssen, associate professor of psychology and director of the neurostudies program at Longwood, are wired from the beginning to smile and produce giggles. Information technology's not beliefs that has to be learned—having a sense of sense of humor is as natural as the pilus on your caput—or, as Newbery Honour-winning author and 2017 VCBF presenter Adam Gidwitz might say, as natural as a fart from a dragon.

"Humor is the common salt in a recipe," said Gidwitz. "Table salt makes all the other flavors more intense. What makes kids laugh ... could exist something unexpected, like a character getting his head chopped off, so picking it up and interim like nothing happened. Or something a niggling gross, similar a farting dragon. Simply when kids are laughing, it ways they accept opened themselves up to what is happening on the folio, and you might every bit well put something important in there."

The VCBF's rise has been meteoric; with thousands of children, teachers and parents on campus, it tin exist hard to believe the festival is merely four years old. Each year it besides connects more deeply with programming effectually the university, including Greenwood Library, the Longwood Heart for the Visual Arts, the Moton Museum, the Taylor Center and faculty from a range of academic departments.

One of the VCBF programs, which seeks to combine reading skills with the popular computer game Minecraft, bridges the applied science gap that many parents and teachers struggle to overcome. Festival attendees read a story together, then set off to re-create the world of the book inside the game.

Pressures from engineering science are not lost on authors and illustrators, says Sophie Blackall, who won the 2016 Caldecott Medal. It'south up to authors and illustrators, she says, to appoint on the kids' level and never lose sight of their experience in the world.

"Everything has changed since I was a child," she said. "It's like shooting fish in a barrel to forget that and easier still to dismiss information technology. But for these children, the world is normal, and it's up to us to meet them where they are. That ways, for me, to think about book illustrations in a different way, to write books that are engaging from the first word and to try and integrate their experiences into the things nosotros write."

For Medina, that ways acknowledging the process of growing upward is thrilling and horrifying all at the aforementioned time. There are moments that are difficult to deal with, or that children don't understand, or want to celebrate, and every kid looks for a companion to consider their ain situation. Books are very oftentimes the best companion."

Anyone who has been on campus during the VCBF and seen the children come alive during a session with an author or illustrator knows that the fight for reading is far from over. At Longwood, it continues with the daily lesson, punctuated by one of the most colorful and exciting events of the year, that reading is the key to unlocking a child'south futurity.

_{TODD PARR, who has participated in the Virginia Children's Volume Festival since its inception, is the best-selling writer and illustrator of more than 30 children'south books almost love, kindness and family, including The I Love You lot Book, The Feelings Book and It's Okay To Be Different. His books are available in more than than 15 languages throughout the world.}

'When kids are laughing, it means they have opened themselves up to what is happening on the folio.'

ADAM GIDWITZ, Newbery Award-winning Writer

THE MAGIC OF THE Right BOOK

For Antwon, that reluctant 8th-grade football star, that companion came in the form of a book written by Mike Lupica, the provocative New York Daily News sports columnist who plant a 2d calling as a young adult writer writing fiction about teenage athletes. Antwon had been through book afterward volume—with little interest—until he found the one with the quarterback on the comprehend.

A quarterback, like him. "He got sucked in," said Dudley-Haley. "It was one of those electrical moments that made me remember all the times in my own life that I had lost all sense of fourth dimension in the heart of a book. He simply couldn't put information technology down. And when he finished—faster than he had e'er read a book before—he couldn't wait to give his book talk. And when he let loose in front of his classmates, they all bought in—everyone wanted to read everything Mike Lupica had e'er written.

"It was ane of those moments that, for a teacher, it all comes together in this flare-up of magic. That's what'due south so special virtually reading."

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Source: http://www.longwood.edu/magazine/fall-2017/the-science-and-art-of-reading/

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