Month: January 2015

A great review of this workbook here from Decoda. Try some of the activities by accessing the online pdf or borrowing a copy from the Decoda library!

Check out this neat video from Decoda’s article on learning coding for all ages in the family.

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is being offered to Stokes County residents through the Stokes Partnership for Children.

Here’s an innovative literacy program aimed at pre-schoolers. In our previous post about pre-school literacy, pediatricians worked with a literacy society to bring books to children. This story is about a literacy program organized by country music star Dolly Parton. One of the most interesting things about this is that Dolly isn’t just shoveling money at the programs. Instead, they seem to be coming up with novel ways of organizing their own fund-raising. What new ways of raising funds could we come up with?

KING — The Stokes Partnership for Children is launching a new program beginning this month. The Dolly Parton Imagination Library will provide a free book every month to all children younger than the age of 6. Once registered, books are mailed directly to the child’s home each month.

The Stokes Partnership for Children, a nonprofit organization based in King, provides programs and services for families and children in Stokes County. One of the partnership’s long-term goals is to improve school readiness leading to improved literacy. Cindy Tuttle, executive director of Stokes Partnership for Children, said, “Forming early literacy skills is vital.”

Dolly Parton started her Imagination Library for children in Tennessee in 1995, and expanded the program to other communities in 2000. Individuals must have a local sponsoring agency in order to sign up for the program. According to Tuttle, the Stokes Partnership for Children has spent six years raising funds to bring this program to Stokes County.

(Read full story by Diane Blakemore)

Teaching reading is mired in theory, with too little focus on practical skills. Photo: Michael Clayton-Jones

A recent report by the NSW Board of Studies, Teaching and Educational Studies suggests there are significant concerns that teachers are not fully equipped to teach reading.

The report is a result of an audit of teacher education courses with a view to finding out how and in what manner teachers are trained in university courses to teach reading to young children.

Of course, the teaching of reading is central to the role of a primary classroom teacher and for perhaps as long as a century the best way to teach reading has been the subject of research, investigation and analysis.

When a teacher introduces a learner to the intricacies of decoding text, they start with the fundamental principle, the alphabet, the symbols that unlock the puzzle of reading. This is followed by teaching the relationship between sound and symbol.

This is known in education as “teaching grapho-phonic relationships”.

(Read full article in Brisbane Times)