2007-2008 NNRC Executive
Board
Chynita Turner - President
Christina Head – President-Elect
Sherry Edbauer - Vice President
Kelly Cartwright– Corresponding Secretary
Verdis Knight – Recording Secretary
Ken Schmidt – Treasurer, Membership Chair
Beth
Guthrie – Historian
Legislative
News
Will the “No Child
Left Behind” Law be reauthorized this year?
Wednesday, September 19, 2007 Richard Long from the International Reading Association briefed interested IRA members in an audio conference about what’s happening with the No Child Left Behind bill in Congress.
Listeners were able to follow along with an online power point. The Miller-McKeon bill for this will go to the House Committee September 27th. If the Committee’s recommendation goes to the Floor, the bill should come before the House in October. Right now the Senate does not have this issue on the calendar and, since they will close for the year in November, it is unlikely they will discuss it this year. Here are the main changes being considered at this time:
1) Differentiating schools that miss AYP by one cell (Priority) and those that don’t make it by two or
more cells (High Priority). There is talk of tracking individuals rather than cohort groups. There seems to be more choice what is used for intervention. Specific reading programs are not listed.
2) What to do with more ELL students
3) Adolescent Literacy
4) Expansion of High School reform- Drop out Prevention
The reauthorization may not take place until 2010, but it is being discussed now. Let your Representative hear how you feel about “No Child Left Behind.”
Marilyn Schempf
Legislative Representative
The Newport News Reading Council and the Hampton
Reading Council are sponsoring a fall literacy conference. Our conference will be held at
Professional
Book Review
Letters to a Young Teacher
by Jonathan Kozol
reviewed by Ken Schmidt, Riverside Elementary
Jonathan Kozol first came to prominence when he published Death at an Early Age in 1967. Since that time he has been a tireless advocate for children and has written widely on social policy, particularly education, poverty, homelessness, and racism.
Under the guise of correspondence with a beginning teacher, Letters to a Young Teacher is a summary of his current thoughts on education policy. Kozol discusses high-stakes testing, vouchers, charter schools, parent-teacher relationships, and the return to schools that are racially isolated, if not segregated by law.
Letters to a Young Teacher is a respite for teachers inundated with discussions of data analysis and test-taking strategies. Kozol offers a refreshing perspective on childhood: He writes about the lives of children with more concern for their humanity than their test scores.
Kozol decries the effects of high-stakes testing on teaching practices. He finds urban schools desperately drilling students on test-like items without any belief that real learning is taking place. Teachers are hampered by meaningless “standards” (The student will produce a narrative procedure…) which they display lest someone think that they are teaching something that will not be on a test.
Others see schools as businesses, with educated students the “product.” As an example, Kozol cites one school’s mission statement: “… sharpen our competitive edge” in “the global marketplace.” In contrast, he believes that childhood does not exist to serve the national economy, and wonders why schools don’t strive to create “aesthetic merriment,” instead. These should be The Magic Years, as Fraiberg titled her classic book on child development. But the magic and sense of wonder of childhood don’t mesh well with preparation for high-stakes tests.
The
book ends with homage to the late Fred Rogers.
TOP TEN
REASONS FOR JOINING NNRC
At $20, membership in the NNRC and VSRA is a bargain. Here are some of the benefits of membership:
- Reading Council workshops are free
- Membership
in the
- Reduced registration for the annual VSRA conference
- Four NNRC and Four VSRA newsletters per year
- Annual
VSRA journal-Reading In
- Teachers as Readers groups
- Textbook Scholarships
- Legislative advocacy
- Professional networking
- Recognition through awards for outstanding teachers, administrators, and school reading programs
** This fall we are offering two incentives to join the Reading Council:
- The
school with the highest percentage of members by November 2nd will receive a $100 gift certificate to Parents
Teacher Supply. One school from
NNRC is an organization that offers an opportunity for
professional growth to the individual and the profession as a whole. Join today.
Method
of Payment ___Cash ___ Check Member
Number __________
2007-2008 MEMBERSHIP FORM
The VSRA
Membership year runs from September 1, 2007 – August 31, 2008
Please print
LEGIBLY and provide all information requested to insure that you receive all
local council and VSRA mailings.
Date_______________________________
Last
Name____________________________________________ First
Name______________________ Middle Initial ___
Home Address
______________________________________________________________________________________
City, State,
Zip ____________________________________________________ Home Phone
_______________________
School
Division/University___________________________ School____________________
Position_________________
E-mail__________________________________________
Work Phone______________________ Fax_______________
Name of
Council you are joining_______________________________ New Member Renewing Member
Type of
Membership: Professional $20
Full-time Student $10 Para-professional $10 Retired $10
I wish to join the Secondary Reading
Council for an additional $5.00
International
Reading Association Member?
Yes No If yes, list IRA Membership #
________________________
Would you
like information about the International Reading Association: Yes No
Please make
checks payable to NNRC. Give checks and
membership forms to your building representative. You may also send them to Ken Schmidt,
Riverside E.S., in N.N., or Chynita Turner, Tabb Elementary E.S., in
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Are you taking a Language Arts or
NNRC Fall 2007 Textbook Scholarship Application
Name: ____________________________________________
School: ___________________________________________
Phone Number: _____________________________________
Course(s): _________________________________________
Text Title(s): _______________________________________
Children’s
Book Review
Gossamer
by Lois Lowry
reviewed by Verdis
Knight,
If you have ever wondered where dreams come from, then this is the fantasy story to read. In her book Gossamer, Lois Lowry introduces us to a most inquisitive dreamgiver, Littlest One. Her supervisor, Fastidious, is unnerved by Littlest One’s constant questioning. When Fastidious complains to her supervisor, Most Ancient, about Littlest One’s incessant chattering, another dreamgiver, Thin Elderly, volunteers to become Littlest One’s supervisor.
Dream-givers nightly jobs are to touch, ever-so-lightly, objects in the home. A kind of flutter on the object to “gather material: memories, colors, word once spoken, hints of scents and the tiniest fragments of forgotten sound.” With one feather-like touch, the entire history of an object comes into the dreamgiver; therefore, they are cautioned not to linger too long because they will gather too many unpleasant memories and become Sinisteeds, which are dreamgivers who inflict pain and horror in the form of nightmares.
Always on the lookout for signs of the Sinisteeds, dreamgivers combine these gatherings into dreams and then bestow them into the dreamer’s thoughts via the ear whenever a dream is needed. They bestow good dreams to offset the nightmare or to repair the damage done by a Sinisteed.
As our story unfolds, we are introduced to two seemingly unconnected families, a lonely elderly woman and her dog taking in an angry abused eight-year-old boy, and a young mother whose son has been placed in foster care. The dream-givers were busy in both homes warding off the Sinisteeds who wanted to keep the boy angry and the young mother down and out. Just before the Sinisteeds arrive to inflict their horrible nightmares on the elderly woman and boy, Littlest One and Thin Elderly bestow all of their stored up fragments and calming words.
Because of her bravery facing the Sinisteed horde, Thin Elderly commends Littlest One to the Most Ancient. For all her questioning, chattering, playfulness, and attention to details she was able to collect and put together the right fragments to make dreams come true. Littlest One is promoted to supervisor, her name is changed to Gossamer, and she is given an opportunity to train New Littlest, the newest dreamgiver. The elderly woman and her dog loves the anger out of the boy and the young mother gets a job as a school secretary in his school so that she can provide them a home.
Committees
The Newport News Reading Council needs your help! We have several committee positions to fill. If you are interested in helping out on any of these committees, please email Chynita Turner at cturner@ycsd.york.va.us.
Young Authors – Plans and organizes the Young Authors Contest held in April.
Merit and Honor Council- Documents Council activities and helps the president organize the binder to be sent to VSRA and IRA.
Hospitality – Organizes and assists in providing food during NNRC events including the spring banquet.
Quill-Helps organize, publish, and distribute the Quill newsletter.
Web page- Helps the webmaster upload information onto the website.
Teachers as Readers
(TAR)
NNRC will fund TEN
Teachers as Readers groups in schools throughout our council. Each group will be awarded $100 for
professional books. For your group to be
considered, fill out this form and send it to Sherry Edbauer– YCPS, Bethel
Manor Elementary or Shelly Zimbro, – NNPS, Hilton Elementary by November 2, 2007. Each group selected should submit a receipt
for books purchased by December 7, 2007
and a description of what the group has done by May 2, 2007. EVERYONE IN
YOUR GROUP MUST BE A NNRC MEMBER.
Teachers as Readers Award Application Form:
Leader:
______________________________________
School: ______________________________________
Address: _____________________________________
School’s Phone Number: ______________________________________
Leader’s Home Phone Number: ______________________________________
Leader’s E-Mail Address: ______________________________________
Teachers as Readers team members:
_____________________ ____________________
_____________________ ____________________
_____________________ ____________________
_____________________ ____________________
_____________________ ____________________
_____________________ ____________________
_____________________ ____________________
_____________________ ____________________
Literacy & Technology Connection
by Karen
Cagle
Lesson planning can be a
time consuming task when considering the various learning needs of your unique
students. Effective technology integration can support your efforts to
differentiate instruction, motivate the 21st century learner,
incorporate high-yield instructional strategies, and increase student
achievement. There are many valuable resources on the Internet to support your
lesson planning efforts, including Verizon’s Thinkfinity, the PBS Teachers
site, and Scholastic On-line.
Thinkinity (http://thinkfinity.org/home.aspx), formerly known as MarcoPolo, is an
on-line portal which houses over 50,000 K-12 lesson plans, student materials
and interactive tools. The site delivers
high-quality standards-based and research-based resources to teachers. Its
content is provided by the nation’s leading organizations in the fields of education,
such as the International Reading Association and the National Council of
Teachers of English. These two organizations have partnered with Verizon to
provide on-line content that supports reading and language arts instruction
through their website, Read*Write*Think (http://readwritethink.org/index.asp).
However, Thinkfinity’s focus is not just on Language Arts. We all know the
importance of literacy achievement across the curriculum. The National
Geographic Society, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, the
Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and the
You should be familiar
with the quality television programs available through the local PBS station,
but have you visited the PBS website? The PBS Teachers site (http://www.pbs.org/teachers/) has a variety of standards-based,
educational resources, including lesson plans. You can search by subject, grade
level, and topic.
Scholastic, the world’s
largest publishing company of children’s books, has a comprehensive website (http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/home.jsp) that supports
literacy and learning. Lesson plans and student activities are just two of the
many resources available on this site. Lesson plans include strategies for
integrating technology to develop reading skills. Scholastic’s CyberHunts help
students develop web research skills. Students can participate in educational
games to practice vocabulary and grammar skills. The Reading Resources section
offers expert advice on best practices for teaching reading in the K-12
classroom. Teachers have the opportunity to join discussion boards and gain
insight from other practicing educators. The connection between the literacy
resources on this site, popular children’s books, and professional growth for
teachers all support student motivation and engagement in reading instruction.
Integrating technology
resources into your planning and curriculum opens the door to a world of
endless possibilities for you and your students. These resources are just a few
of the many available to help you plan your reading instruction. Most reading
textbooks have a corresponding website that suggests differentiated plans and
often host online activities for students to support the curriculum. Lesson
planning can be a time consuming task, but time invested in exploring
technology resources and integration of technology activities throughout the
curriculum will be returned exponentially in student engagement and
achievement.
