December 17, 2010
This is the last time we’ll “speak” before the new year, so I wanted to take this time to thank you all for a great year. This was an amazing 12 months for the site, for me personally, and for graphic novels in general; I’m incredibly pleased and grateful that we have such loyal and discerning readers.
In today's post, regular contributor Denise Neary shares an amazing program for kids to help them with reading comprehension. With programs like this - kids have so much fun they don't even realize they are learning. Thanks to librarian Heather Wright for your commitment to kids - and thanks Denise for sharing!
It is my personal belief that librarians have magical qualities.
I was trolling my local library’s website when I came upon this posting. Act It Out: for children in grades Kindergarten, first and second grades. We will share stories and act them out. Please register.
Wouldn’t you have had to know more?
I did-----and lucky for me, I was connected with the unquestionably magical Heather Wright of the Rockville (Maryland) library.
Her answers to my endless questions appear in italics.
What made the library decide to offer this program?
A woman named Lenore Kelner came and spoke to librarians a few years ago and demonstrated the technique she uses in her drama classes. She runs a place called "Interact Story Theater" which does after school drama classes using children's literature. I have tweaked her strategy to fit library audiences. I then read a book before I began called "A Dramatic Approach to Reading Comprehension", in which I learned how important drama is in the area of reading comprehension. So the participants are having fun and improving their reading at the same time! (All without actually reading a word)
How does the evening play out?
Kids in Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grade are the audience. No parents, no younger siblings, are allowed. The format is: I, the librarian do some warm-up drama exercises with the kids (creative, using-your-imagination kind of things), then I read a story, then I have the kids tell the story back to me in their own words making sure all kids get the gist of the story. Then, I assign parts to all the kids, and we basically act it out. I am the narrator and I move the action along. The kids sit around a rug in the children’s programming room in the library, and when it is their character's turn to say or do something, they stand on the rug. They don't need to say exactly what the character says in the book--they can say something they think that character might say under the circumstances. In this way, the kids are internalizing their characters, truly understanding their actions and motivations. This is an excellent way of building reading comprehension and listening comprehension. After the story is acted out, we do some cool-down exercises to come back to reality. It lasts usually about 45 minutes to an hour.
How widespread it the program?
Mary Jane Clark, the author of several highly addictive whodunits --- including TO HAVE AND TO KILL
Comics ratings: So useful in theory, so complicated in real life. It certainly is handy that the publishers put that age rating on the back, but what does it mean? Who decides what a 13-year-old can see that a 12-year-old can't? And which 13-year-olds are they talking about, anyway?
At this time of year, our thoughts turn automatically to giving and receiving. How can they not? We are bombarded with emails and commercials both online and off that tell us what to buy and remind us to hurry up and buy it.
Stephanie O’Dea is an award-winning blogger, a bestselling author and a busy mom of three, whose next cookbook ---
I love this story: Comics artist David Sandlin, an instructor at the School of Visual Arts and a current New York Public Library Cullman Fellow, has been selected to do what many graffiti artists would kill for. His art is adorning several subway lines in New York City beginning this month and running through January. Right now, the art is visible from the F line, with hopefully more lines getting his art soon. The three pieces are united in theme, which is a nice touch. Click through to see all the art Sandlin has created for the project.
NPR did a story today called "End Of Days For Bookstores? Not If They Can Help It" about how Amazon and the eBook world are affecting the industry and what the future is both for the chain bookstores and for the independents.
There was another very long story in the Boston Review called "Books After Amazon" on essentially the same topic.
And if I've read these two articles, I've read a hundred more over the past year or two. If you've been paying attention the industry at all, you know it is in major flux. eBooks are on the rise, the big chain bookstores are struggling, Amazon is fighting with publishers over price issues, self-publishing seems to be on the rise and eReaders are the new hot thing.
And everyone - literally everyone in the industry is weighing in. But no one really seems to know how this is all going to play out. And how could they? No one has a crystal ball. They are all just watching the trends and trying their best to stay up to date and offer their readers and customers the right things.
So all of this got me thinking... how do I want this all to turn out? And how do YOU want it all to turn out? If I could create the perfect future for books and bookselling from a reader's perspective, what would it be?
