The Literacy Network

Basic and advanced tips for parents on encouraging reading in their child.  Includes a video of a mother, Eden,  explaining "how she gets her son, who would rather play video games, involved in reading—tricky!"

http://vimeo.com/40124322

Via Heather Stapleton

Here, we outline six elements of instruction that every child should experience every day. Each of these elements can be implemented in any district and any school, with any curriculum or set of materials, and without additional funds. All that's necessary is for adults to make the decision to do it.

Via Marita Thomson, Heather Stapleton

"Here are a dozen strategies to motivate reluctant readers, and none of them involves stickers, certificates, or pizza. External rewards may work in the short term, but if you really want students to love reading you have to look for other options. Since this is just a quick overview, you’ll notice that some strategies contain links to additional sources that you can explore later. On to the strategies..."

Via Heather Stapleton

"The teen book publishing industry continues to gain momentum, but only a tiny fraction of teen books actually appeal to boys. With such a small selection to choose from, we are in danger of losing the boys Percy Jackson and Greg Heffley have made into readers. Rather than lamenting the inequality of the current publishing trends, we need to rethink teen collection development at our libraries." - from the about us page of Boys Do Read blog. 

Includes book reviews "with the intent on broadening the possibilities at what we can offer teen boys to read". (Steven)

Via Heather Stapleton

"In the following articles, you'll find resources to help you identify and reach your reluctant readers."

Excellent teacher's guides, author and genre/media articles available as  free PDF downloads from Random House.

Via Heather Stapleton

What is a QBook? QBook™ is an interactive read-along digital colour picture book format designed by Kiwa Media for young children. QBook is an eBook, iPhone and iPad app that combines a narrators...

Via Carmel Galvin, Petra Pollum, Pippa Davies @PippaDavies

"The Kent District Library is starting a new program called 'Guys Read'.

KDL Librarians say last year alone, boys checked out 256,000 fewer books than girls.

The 'Guys Read' program is in response to those numbers. The program is intended to get boys interested in reading. The goal is two fold. They want to make reading a masculine activity and to improve boys test scores."

Via Heather Stapleton

I have watched many boys learn to loathe reading as it becomes a 'sore hand' activity when their teachers expect them to WRITE in response to everything that they read. They are forced to read guided texts that bore them on ...
Via Heather Stapleton

"My own experiences over a long number of years as a reader, a father and an English teacher lead me to believe that the problem is not so clear-cut as the figures suggest, but nonetheless there are some measures which can sensibly be taken to encourage reading, especially among boys."

Via Heather Stapleton

Who actually reads boy books? You are probably wondering. About 3.9/4 of the books that I read and review on my blog are girl YA books. Do I like these girl YA books? Heck yes I do. If I didn't like girl YA books I basically ...
Via Heather Stapleton

"Walter Dean Myers, our current Ambassador for Young People’s literature said it best - reading in today’s society is a necessary skill. Not optional. Necessary.

 

So how do we entice reluctant readers to hone their skills? We find them something they want to read - and realize that might not be a book.

 

While we shouldn't make generalizations about guys and reading (I live with three males who love pleasure reading), I found interesting information from the study quoted at education.com: ..."

Via Heather Stapleton

"It’s common to hear that the reason boys don’t read is because they don’t want to read “girl books”, and that there is a tilt in publishing, writing, and marketing toward books for girls and by women. In fact, there is a book published by the American Library Association called Connecting Boys with Books (a second edition was published in 2009) which makes the argument that boys are drawn to “boys’ books” and specific genres, and that libraries need to make special efforts to meet those needs in order to close the literacy gap. Ana at Lady Business has written a very interesting (and very long) post called Gender Balance in YA Fiction. What’s great about this is that, while it isn’t comprehensive, it’s grounded in solid data, and provides a list of further reading at the end."

Via Heather Stapleton

Principal Claire Smith has harnessed the power of football, speedway racing and journalism to improve literacy in her school...
Via Heather Stapleton

"I know it’s not a contest or anything, but I bet that when I began teaching language arts I had read fewer books of any kind than any other language arts teacher in the history of public education. I never liked reading as a kid, but I can vividly remember the first time I took my students down to our antique, two-sizes-too small library to check out books. With the signatures on my diploma still wet, I was excited to begin working with my students on all of the great teaching strategies that I had learned in college to improve their reading skills..."

Via Heather Stapleton

"We found that about 8 in 10 Americans under the age of 30 have read a book in the past year. And that's compared to about 7 in 10 adults in general, American adults. So, they're reading — they're more likely to read, and they're also a little more likely to be using their library."