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"Driving past the local "cash-strapped" high school's humongous color jumbotron the other day (the one in violation of zoning laws and with a larger carbon footprint than Toledo), I was reminded that I haven't written about one of my favorite subjects in a while - summer reading. The jumbotron's ominous message warned students not to forget their summer reading "assignment." Let me first state on-the-record that I am for reading. I'm a big fan of it and suggest that others try it occasionally. What I am against is hypocrisy and coercive teaching practices."

"I am reading Visible Learners by Mara Krechevsky, Ben Mardell, Melissa Rivards and Daniel Wilson. In an effort to document my reading, I am choosing to tweet quotes that resonate with me through the lens of my work around documentation as/for learning. You can follow the curation of these tweets, as I am reading, in the storify slidedeck below."

"Bookworms everywhere mourned the state of our country when Pew released a poll that found 23 percent of Americans didn't read a single book in the previous year. Things aren't looking particularly encouraging for future generations, either. Experts estimate that only 1/3 of parents regularly read to their children, even though reading plays an immense role in cognitive development. Despite these depressing statistics, there is reason to take heart. With a greater emphasis on literacy research and advocacy, teachers have more information than ever about how to best cultivate a love for literacy in the classroom. There are numerous methods, but most fall under "the three E's of literacy." "

"A recently released Pew Research study shows that young people (age 16-29) are reading more than many people think they are, and that much of what they read nowadays is on a screen rather than on paper. Most of these young people who read using a screen read on their phones or their computers rather than on eReaders."

"Claire Handscombe has a commitment problem online. Like a lot of Web surfers, she clicks on links posted on social networks, reads a few sentences, looks for exciting words, and then grows restless, scampering off to the next page she probably won't commit to. "I give it a few seconds - not even minutes - and then I'm moving again," says Handscombe, a 35-year-old graduate student in creative writing at American University. Gallery Lynda Barry: The 20 stages of reading: If there are stages of grief and steps to recovery, isn't the act of reading a complicated, evolving thing over time? Cartoonist Lynda Barry, one of scores of writers at the National Book Festival on Sept. 21-22, certainly thinks so. (Related: 12 authors, 12 reasons why they write) Click here to subscribe. But it's not just online anymore. She finds herself behaving the same way with a novel. "

"When elementary school students have math worksheets to fill out, spelling tests to study for, after school activities to participate in, and chores to finish, it's no wonder that the standard daily reading homework assignment can fall to the wayside.  It may seem like a small concession necessary to prioritize a busy life. After all, parents may reason, their child can catch up on reading over the weekend, over the summer, or during a less hectic time. But the effects of regularly skipping that reading homework can have long-term effect on a child's life"

"ust as there are many models for Close Reading, there are a multitude of apps that will support your students in digging deeper into a text. I am sharing my 5 favorite free apps for annotating and note taking on the iPad. These apps will work with any book or reading passage and can be used for each step of the close reading process."

"Before becoming a librarian two Septembers ago I was a fourth grade teacher for seventeen years.  My favorite part of the day, the non-negotiable, the very best way to build classroom culture, was read aloud time.  My kids knew that no matter what our day looked like we would carve out 20 minutes every day for this sacred time of day.  Read aloud time gave everyone a level playing field to access text.  It gave us inside jokes. It gave us a shared experience we could refer to and I could use to model reading and writing strategies."

"Many teachers have been using iPads to develop reading in the classroom. This post looks at how they can be integrated into guided reading, however the apps we recommend are versatile enough to be used across many teaching reading contexts."

"To prepare students for college and careers, reading comprehension needs to be a part of all subject areas. Students cannot master complex scientific concepts, comprehend historical treaties, or follow complex logic problems without it. Content areas deal with complex texts that require analytical reading skills. Students in social studies, science, and math classes have to be able to compare and synthesize ideas, and use specific academic vocabulary. In 2002, Fisher, Frey, and Williams compiled this list of literacy strategies for the content areas. Today, we're going to add to the list and suggest certain reading comprehension strategies to try in your content area classroom"

"When Sylvia Martinez and Gary Stager published Invent to Learn a couple of years I quickly read it on my Android tablet through the Kindle app. Then in March of this year I had a chance to talk with Gary for a while at a conference that we were both invited to in Sydney. While there I bought a paperback copy of Invent to Learn. I have now read it two more times and filled it with notes in the margins of the pages (scribbling notes is the best part about having a physical copy of a book). In no particular order, here are five highlights from the notes I've taken while reading Invent to Learn. "

"Any book lover can tell you: diving into a great novel is an immersive experience that can make your brain come alive with imagery and emotions and even turn on your senses. It sounds romantic, but there's real, hard evidence that supports these things happening to your brain when you read books. In reading, we can actually physically change our brain structure, become more empathetic, and even trick our brains into thinking we've experienced what we've only read in novels."

ZAP Reader is a web based speed reading program that will change the way you read on your computer. Current beta testers report reading twice as much in half the time-that's a 300% increase in reading speed, without any loss in comprehension! There is nothing to install, it works with most popular browsers, and it's totally free!

I'm never really sure what the value of being able to read quickly is and whether this effects the amount of information you actually retain when you read, but I do know that getting EFL and ESL students to read in chunks and getting them to read as much as possible can be very beneficial to their language development.

"Last month I shared some of the great features from News-O-Matic's new update and there is one more you are sure to love.  Teachers using this app can choose between different reading levels for students.  Each article is adapted by News-O-Matic's editorial team to fit three reading levels (400L-600L, 600L-750L and 750-1050L).  These categories are connected to ranges of Lexile levels - a readability measure that helps measure text complexity. Teachers can assign different reading levels to each student in their class so they automatically receive news articles on their tablet that are the right level for them."

"Anyone who has been to any of my presentations in the past couple of years knows that I'm passionate about teaching search skills. Not only search skills, but how search can and is truly changing our world. Search has the possibility to change our classrooms tomorrow because we can ask interesting questions that we never could ask before. If you are asking your students the same questions today that you asked before Google, it's time to updated your questions. Things have changed….the world has changed and questions and information are the main reason why. I consider Dan Russell from Google the father of search today. This guy understands how our world is changing because we can ask questions we never could before. In this TEDx Talk Dan talks not only about how search is changing our world but more importantly the reading strategies we need to be teaching today to our students around how to read digital information. Dan, through research of his own, goes on to show that only 51% of educators know the digital information reading strategy of "Find". That's just one strategy! There are others he talks about in this video. If nothing else this video has fueled my passion even more on why every teacher needs to know and understand this new digital world of information."

"Although American University student Cooper Nordquist, 21, uses his laptop most of the day, he still likes to read from the printed word for enjoyment. Despite that fact that most college students do a majority of their socializing and school work electronically, many still like to read from actual hard copy printed books. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)"

"On the first Wednesday in March each year readers from around the world come together to share their favorite stories.  Started by LitWorld, World Read Aloud Day or WRAD is an amazing opportunity for students, teachers, parents and community members to come together for a read aloud.  You can Skype with another class from around the world, invite a guest speaker to your classroom, or have students read aloud to one another."

"I recently picked up a habit worth keeping -- reading a chapter book with my child every single day! Thanks to Mrs. O'Rourke, the extraordinary school librarian at my children's school, she introduced a program to our school called "one school, one book", which is a program that is designed to create a shared reading experience with your child. The idea is to choose a chapter book to read with your child over the course of a single month and gain some of the benefits featured below."