Roundup of Resources for Literacy and Reading – May 2010

2010 May 4

Literacy Reading News RoundupHappy May, y’all! In listening to the radio last week, I learned that Tuesday after 11 AM is one of the best times to send out email and other correspondence if you want to increase your chances that people read it. So here I am, Tuesday, after 11.

As many of you know, I think reading diversely is important to ourselves and our communities. So I was REALLY tickled to find AA Kids Book Talks, which offers reviews of African American children’s books. AA Kids is the brainchild of Karen Lemmons, an elementary school librarian in Detroit. When she introduced herself in the Kidlitosphere Yahoo group, I ran over to check out her blog … and so should you.

The Open Clip Art Library is not directly related to reading and books, but for those of us who blog about books and reading, this is a GREAT resource. I, for one, am forever trying to find royalty-free, no-hidden-cost images and clip art to add to my posts. Thanks Marge (who got it from Kathy), your post was a godsend. See the full post at Tiny Tips for Library Fun.

Thanks to a Google Alert, I discovered the Green Gables blog. It’s only 3 months old, and I might not have otherwise found it. Here’s their mission: “At Green Gables Books we have a simple philosophy: Read more and Literacy will improve your life. Our blog offers Librarians, Teachers and Students a contribution to this philosophy. We will present a wide range of authors, viewpoints, attitudes and sometimes just plain fun.” What caught my attention is this post that reviews books Through Children’s Eyes.

21st Century Literacies

Before I dive into the articles, I’d like to point out that the American Library Association’s Office of Intellectual Freedom has proclaimed this Choose Privacy Week. The focus of the week is to inform Americans about their rights to privacy in a digital age. Social networks Facebook and Google have recently been in the news because of privacy concerns, so this is certainly a good time to establish such a week and to make Americans aware of current and on going privacy issues. Thanks to Kara Schaff Dean for the heads up and the reminder not to forget the kids! @ Not Just for Kids.

School Library Journal is sponsoring 21st Century Digital Knowledge Management: the Changing Role of Media Specialist With Classroom Technology. This is a FREE, one-hour webcast being held on 13 May 2010, at 2:00 pm (EDT). What I like about SLJ events is that if you can’t be there on the 13th, they keep a copy in the archives for a year.

A resource to use between now and then might be Futurelab’s Digital Literacy Across the Curriculum handbook (PDF), which was recently discussed at the Libraries and Transliteracy website. (via email from Susan Stephenson, who saw it tweeted several times).

Creative Literacy for Kids

Barefoot Books has launched a new podcast series on its website. Each week, you can listen to a FREE reading of one of the company’s picture books.

My thanks to Wendie Old’s post iPad + Children’s Books (Wendie’s Wanderings) for the link to Karen Springen’s article in Publisher’s Weekly that is FILLED with links to children’s picture books available as “Apps” for smartphones, computers, and (of course) the iPad. The_iPad_Meets_the_Children’s_Book really opened my eyes to how much is already available with the current technologies. What I particularly like is that Karen includes free eBook downloads, too.

In Susan Stephenson’s Resource Roundup, a collection of cool (virtual) creative literacy toys tools this month, she has a link to BembosZoo. It is so fun! Choose a letter and the word for an animal starting with that letter appears. Then, the letters of the word rearrange themselves to create an image of the animal. Spelling, word association, vocabulary, learning new animals (viper) … cool.

Literacy and Reading Tools for Parents

This via Electronic eBook Readers blog: “Bookmice.com has today launched an exciting line of electronic children’s books. Included this new collection are a series of books that feature internet weblinks embedded right into the text which, when clicked on, take the reader to websites that expand the storyline with fun and educational information.everything from the origins of chocolate and hamburgers to how castles in Medeival Scotland were built.” I tried linking to Bookmice.com but got an ad-riddled site.

Literacy and Reading Tools for Educators

LiteracyHead is a new weekly online journal whose purpose is to instill a love of reading, writing, and the arts. I discovered it (via Google Alert) in the Curator’s Corner, the blog for the Georgia Museum of Art. According to the blog, there is a subscription fee, but you can also sign up for the journal by email … not sure if it’s like other journals where some content is free, but it’s probably worth a look. Click the image and look at all the book titles … I’m sure you’ll recognize some favorites.]

Similar Posts:

This website uses IntenseDebate comments, but they are not currently loaded because either your browser doesn't support JavaScript, or they didn't load fast enough.

Improve the web with Nofollow Reciprocity.
FireStats icon Powered by FireStats Better Tag Cloud