The Latest Issue of Word Up!
In Focus: Goals and Resolutions
Browse the Word Up! newsletter archive.
Happy New Year! January is a great month for new beginnings and fresh starts. Whether it's finding a new way to motivate your readers, making literacy-based adjustments to your instruction, or helping students set their own goals, resolve to read an article or two on our January topic.
Student Motivation and Engagement in Literacy Learning
Teachers can help students build confidence in their ability to comprehend content-area texts by providing a supportive environment and offering information on how reading strategies can be modified to fit various tasks. Teachers should also make literacy experiences more relevant to students' interests, everyday life, or important current events.
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Five Areas of Instructional Improvement to Increase Academic Literacy
How can content-area, non-reading-specialist teachers contribute to academic literacy? They can incorporate these five techniques throughout their lessons: (1) provide explicit instruction and supported practice in effective comprehension techniques; (2) increase the amount and quality of reading content discussions; (3) maintain high standards for text, conversation, questions, and vocabulary; (4) increase student motivation and engagement with reading; and (5) provide essential content knowledge to support student mastery of critical concepts. Find out why these strategies and the literacy areas they represent are so important.
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Goal Setting for Children with Learning Disabilities: Your Role Is Important
The ability to set goals and meet them is essential for the success of people with learning disabilities. Learn how to help children set goals, persevere toward those goals, and succeed in making their dreams come true.
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In the News
Walter Dean Myers Named National Ambassador for Young People's Literature
The National Ambassador for Young People's Literature raises national awareness of the importance of young people's literature as it relates to lifelong literacy, education, and the development and betterment of the lives of young people. Appointed as the 2012 National Ambassador, Walter Dean Myers says, "Reading is not optional." Myers is a critically acclaimed author of books for young people. His award-winning body of work includes "Sunrise Over Fallujah," "Fallen Angels," "Monster," "Somewhere in the Darkness," and "Harlem." Myers has received two Newbery Honor Awards and five Coretta Scott King Awards.
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Books & Authors
Walter Dean Myers and the Second Chance Initiative
Inspired by the ideas of hope and redemption, Walter Dean Myers and AdLit.org joined forces to create The Second Chance Initiative to motivate teens to overcome life's challenge, move beyond mistakes of the past, take advantage of the second chances they are given, and make better choices in the future.
Visit our Second Chance Initiative page for loads of material to lead a unit on making good choices: a Dope Sick reading guide and free online access to the first three chapters of the book; extension activities to help get kids thinking and writing about their own lives; audio podcasts and video interviews with Walter Dean Myers, who discusses his own tumultuous childhood, his approach to writing, and his reflections on a recent school visit; and resources on the social and emotional development of teens and guidance for talking to kids about a range of topics including dropping out of school, drugs, and teen pregnancy.
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Featured Author: Walter Dean Myers
Award-winning author Walter Dean Myers discusses his childhood, his approach to writing, and the representations of minorities in young adult literature in this video interview. .
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In the Classroom
Featured Strategy: Think Alouds
Think Alouds are practical and relatively easy for teachers to use within the classroom. Teachers are able to model the Think Aloud technique and discuss how good readers often re-read a sentence, read ahead to clarify, and/or look for context clues to make sense of what they read. Think alouds slow down the reading process and enable students to develop their metacognitive skills while monitoring their understanding of a text.
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Glossary Term: Metacognition
Metacognition is the process of thinking about thinking. For example, good readers use metacognition before reading when they clarify their purpose for reading and preview the text.
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In the Community
Featured Partner: Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA)
The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) is a national association of librarians, library workers, and advocates whose mission is to expand and strengthen library services for teens aged 12-18. Through its member-driven advocacy, research, and professional development initiatives, YALSA builds the capacity of libraries and librarians to engage, serve, and empower teens.
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Featured Site: Teaching Kids News
Teaching Kids News (TKN) provides timely, relevant news articles for kids, educators in the classroom, and parents at home. Teaching Kids News was created by educators Jonathan Tilly and Kathleen Tilly and freelance journalist Joyce Grant. Free to use, the website offers news articles with lower readability levels than traditional newspapers. There are articles within News, Entertainment, Science, Arts, Sports, and Politics.
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All the best from AdLit.org
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- Christian Lindstrom, Director, Learning Media
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