Reading with Jen Strange

Books change you

One of the blogs I follow is called GeekMom.  I like it because they celebrate intellectual curiosity - plus they talk about technology, education, science fiction, Harry Potter, and LEGOs, among other things. 

Last week in a post about Goodreads.com (a site I LOVE), GeekMom Ariane posted this:

There’s a certain level of personal connection that is made with a book when you read it, and while not every book is life changing, I’d like to think every book changes you a little bit. You can’t unread it; Once it’s read you will carry that book around with you somewhere in the recesses of your mind for the rest of your life.

Truer words were never spoken.

P.S. the picture is of my good friend Elauna, on a trip to Barnes & Noble.  Oh, how we love that place!

Quote: Why We Read

Today I started reading a new book: Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, by Maryanne Wolf.  It's an odd title, I know, but it's going to be awesome.  It's rather technical and scientific, and I can tell already that it's going to challenge me because my brain hurts.  (Totally serious.  Anything having to do with literature or artistic expression is second nature to me, anything having to do with science or math or extreme technicality taxes me greatly.)

OK!  The point of this entry - an amazing expression of WHY WE READ, found on page 7:

While reading, we can leave our own consciousness, and pass over into the consciousness of another person, another age, another culture . . . Reading enables us to try on, identify with, and ultimately enter for a brief time the wholly different perspective of another person's consciousness . . . We never come back quite the same; sometimes we're inspired, sometimes saddened, but we are always enriched.

And, finally, what I think might be my strongest reason for being a reader:

We are no longer limited by the confines of our own thinking.

Go forth and read, my friends.  :)

Frederick Douglass quote

This is awesome:

"Once you learn to read, you will be forever free."
- Frederick Douglass

I absolutely love this quote.  It sums up why I'm so interested in early literacy - once you can read, you can teach yourself anything simply by going to the library.  When you can't read, you are so, so limited - and I hate that anyone is ever in that position.

Reading In Bed poem

Today I was reading through "A Poem A Day," by Helen H. Moore, and looking for poems I can use with my early readers.  I found a great poem about reading!  I'm including here just the first, fourth, and fifth stanzas:

Oh, what could be better
Than reading in bed,
Or thinking about
All the books that you've read?

While outside the sky
Is all twinkling with light,
From stars that shine down
As we sleep through the night.

Oh, what could be better
Than sleeping in bed,
When the books that you love
Fill the dreams in your head?

- Helen H. Moore

I love that last thought, that the books you've been reading fill your dreams!

Find Helen at Amazon by clicking here. 

Picasso quote

This is one of my all-time favorite quotes:

"Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life." - Pablo Picasso

Insert "reading" in place of "art" and it basically sums up what I feel whenever I snuggle down with a book.  :)  Reading is life-changing - and helps to give life meaning.

McGuinness on Sight Words

Right now I'm reading Why Our Children Can't Read and What We Can Do About It - the author, Diane McGuinness, is also the author of Growing a Reader From Birth, one of my three "must read" suggestions for all parents.  Why Our Children Can't Read is a bit harder to read than Growing a Reader - it's very scientific and written at what I'd say is early college reading level - but it's so, so fascinating.  I just read something she has to say about sight-words, and it had me standing up and cheering:

Sight words were originally defined as words with such irregular spellings they had to be memorized "by sight."  Later, memorizing all words by sight became the major mode of learning to read in whole word approaches, especially "look-say."  Phonics programs and most reading textbooks also advocate teaching a large group of "sight words."  Here, the rationale shifts to the "getting started" theory.  Children should learn sight words, it is claimed, because they can start reading "right away," and this is motiviating.  Thus, sight words are taught prior to learning the alphabet code or concurrently with learning the code.  Teaching sight words this way can have profoundly negative consequences on the child's fragile understanding of the alphabetic principle.

YUP.

Context:
alphabetic principle: the idea that letters work together as symbols to form, in writing, the words which represent speech, and that this process is predictable and reliable.  The alphabetic principle is the foundation of any written language.
alphabetic code:  the idea that certain letters or combinations of letters typically represent certain sounds.  (Example, the letter t should almost always represent the /t/ sound.)  In basic code, each letter is assigned one sound.  Advanced alphabetic code explores alternative spelling representations.  (The word "pig" is a basic code word.  The word "giraffe" requires knowledge of advanced code.)

Yeah, pretty much

Click on image to view comic larger at Calamities of Nature

Quotes from National Right to Read Foundation

Today I was reading material on the National Right to Read Foundation's website, and came across a great summary of how literacy education in America got derailed by "whole word" education:  Illiteracy: An Incurable Disease or Education Malpractice? 

Very cool website; lots of great information.

Arnold Lobel reading quote

Arnold Lobel (1933-1987) was a prolific author and illustrator of children's books, most famous for his "Frog and Toad" books. One of his lesser known works, a book of poetry titled "Whiskers and Rhymes," contains a great poem about reading.

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Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them!
How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.

- Arnold Lobel

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Love. it.

View Arnold Lobel's author page at Amazon: click here

Reading quotes

These are from GoodReads.com's collection of quotes:

"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them." — Mark Twain

"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go." — Dr. Seuss

"You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me." — C.S. Lewis

"Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers." — Charles William Elliot

"A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading." — William Styron

"Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home." — Anna Quindlen

"I don't believe in the kind of magic in my books. But I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book." — J.K. Rowling