(Reading) Resources for Parents

In a conversation with a parent today in the therapy pool at the Delnor Wellness Center, we spoke about ways to provide enriching experiences for her two children in terms of reading and building skills useful both in school and beyond.  I have written about many of these ideas in earlier posts to this blog and wanted to revisit the topic--and to provide some new posts.

A very good way for students to build reading and writing skills is to listen to unabridged audiobooks of interest to them and to read along with an unabridged companion (printed) book.  The best source of these books is the local public library--in my area the St. Charles Public Library probably has the best collection.  If you do not have access to a public library (which I heartily encourage for everyone), you can go online to the World Public Library and access many downloadable digital books (for visual reading) and digital audio books.  An individual annual membership to the World Public Library is only $8.95 per year.

Downloadable books can be saved on iPods and MP3 players.   This gives the students access to books where they keep their music and gives them that much more opportunity to read or to listen to the books.

Amazon has the Kindle digital book readerKindle Wireless Reading Device (6" Display, U.S. Wireless)--that also supports audio.  Sony has a book reader and a European company makes a third reader (at, perhaps, a more affordable price).  While downloaded books can be read on computers--I read several textbooks that way while taking online courses from the University of Phoenix--portable book readers seem to be a much preferred way to go for digital books.  (You may want to explore "tablet PCs"--including a new one that may be coming out from Apple soon--to see if that will give you the most value from your investment.)  Follow this link for a review of the book readers.

I have been working with an extension of the audiobook and companion book concept to review my Spanish language skills.  I listen to an unabridged audiobook in English while reading its unabridged companion book in Spanish, then I listen to the unabridged audiobook in Spanish after I have read the companion book.  A modification that would also work is to do what I just said, then listen to the unabridged audiobook in Spanish and read the unabridged companion book in Spanish again.  This would reinforce Spanish pronunciation of the words in the book.

To improve writing skills, adults and children need to read more.  Research indicates that the best writers were first very good readers. (Visit the "Using Audiobooks" link on the page.).  An easy and mostly painless way to start is to find a series of books by a favorite author.  (For example, the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling.  Visit http://drm-booklists.wikispaces.com/ and look at the tabs on the left for some suggestions.)  Once the adults or children have listened to and read a few of the books in the series, they should be encouraged to create a sequel or another story using the same characters and language of their favorite author of the series.  This way they have good role models for their writing and a good way to measure the quality of their writing against the work of they author they were inspired by.

These approaches can improve reading and comprehension by both children and adults and are especially valuable for second language learners.  By involving multiple senses, these approaches can also help people overcome minor learning challenges that impact how they read or listen.

For those who are physically or visually challenged, the Library of Congress offers the National Library Service free for those who qualify.  Qualification is a matter of certification by a doctor and then patrons receive free digital audiobooks and braile books in the mail.  Visit my blog post about BARD for more details.

If you would like to see a presentation about using audiobooks to improve reading and academic performance, please follow this link to my website. (Go to the 2009 Presentation on "Using Audiobooks," then click on the link you want to use.)

If you are interested in working with me to help your children (or adults) to learn to read more, please visit my website contact page at http://www.joelmonty.net/contact/contact.htm.

Making Connections between Schools, Parents, and Students

Teachers are often challenged to make connections between schools, parents, and students.  Many times parents regard their children and school work as unrelated to the "real world" of their day-to-day lives.  The Library of Congress of the United States of America has suggested that students capture oral histories of their families.

Last year I had two projects that I introduced at the middle school (seventh and eighth grade) level that could be adapted up and down and is relevant to adults as well.  These two projects were a Family Migration History project and a Footprints Project.  You can find out more about these projects on my digital portfolio for education on YouTube.  (Follow this link for the same video on Teacher Tube.)  You can find the details for the projects on these websites:  http://drmontgomery.wikispaces.com/ and http://drm-ms-resources.wikispaces.com/.

In the Family Migration Story we used the National Geographic Human Genome Project as our starting place for everyone's stories, then picked up personal family stories as far back as the parents could remember, talking about family members and reasons for moving from one place to another across the globe.  Using a collaborative writing technique guided by the teacher students in each class created a series of questions which they translated from English to their native language.  They asked their parents the questions and recorded the answers.  They also gathered family pictures, souvenirs, and other family treasures to support their stories.  (These are called primary source documents in historical research circles.)  We made digital copies of these treasures and returned them immediately to their parents.  Our goal was to have the students write a script from their answers and to digitally record their Family Migration Stories--accompanied by the digital photographs of their family treasures.  Ideally they would make the recording in both English and in their native language.  Our goal was to record their scripts onto DVDs which the parents could then play at home.  Due to technological difficulties the audio in our recordings didn't work last year, though the rest of the project went well.

The Footprints project takes the end of the Family Migration Story and talks about what someone has done with their lives.  Middle school students can talk about what they want to do with their lives and what kind of footprint they want to leave on the planet.  Parents and teachers can talk about footprint stories from the point of view of what they have done with their lives and of the footprint they are leaving on the planet.

These are very engaging projects and are good for the beginning of a school year, though they could be a focus point for anytime during the year.  Parents could come to the school to view multiple Family Migration Stories as part of a celebration of learning.

The key to integrating parents into the school life and the life of the students is to make the connections with the real world.  Parents and students studying language together can be a help as well as parents becoming involved as subject matter experts about their own families.