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Peter Krantz - January 10th, 2005 "A while ago I read the article "Observing Users Who Listen to Web Sites". In that article the authors report that visually impaired users scan web pages with their ears instead of reading them top to bottom. This may not come as a surprise to you if you read Jakob Nielsen's "How Users read on the Web" back in 1997. Recently I have had the opportunity to study a number of screen reader users and my observations are similar. (...) So, here are some suggestions you can use to improve the browsing experience for visually impaired users: Use headings god dammit!"

"Children's personalities may influence how they perform in maths and reading, according to a study by psychology researchers at The University of Texas at Austin. Proficiency in reading and maths is associated with a complex system of skills, some of which derive from personality traits. In a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, researchers found that characteristics related to openness, such as intellectual curiosity and confidence, made children more adept to take on maths and reading than characteristics describing conscientiousness, such as diligence and perseverance."

In reading tests at school, girls tend to be ahead of boys, in all age groups and in all countries. But in young adults, there is suddenly no longer any difference between men's and women's reading skills. Why is that? Could the answer be in the way the tests are designed?

A table of reading comprehension strategies - geared to an students higher then elementary, but some of the ideas could be geared down.

Reading Bear teaches children to Read by introducing phonics principles painlessly and systematically, while teaching new vocabulary.

There are some new apps in Chrome. I've installed the "pocket" app. These are basically apps that stand alone but sort of have chrome running in the background. Here's information on these handy tools to help you get more done. I do recommend Pocket (and have the app for my ipad as well) for offline reading. There are times I find a great article that I know I want to read, when I click "add to pocket" it puts it into pocket and then, when I sit down to read at night, there's the personal magazine assembled from the day's interests.

New study on the effects of instant messaging on reading comprehension. Students who send and receive instant messages while completing a reading assignment take longer to get through their texts but apparently still manage to understand what they're reading, according to one of the first studies to explore how the practice affects academic learning.

Excellent free reading program for K-3

Free-Reading is an open source instructional program that helps educators teach early literacy. Because it is open source, it represents the collective wisdom of a wide community of teachers and researchers. Free-Reading contains a 40-week scope and sequence of primarily phonological awareness and phonics activities that can support and supplement a typical kindergarten or first grade "core" or "basal" program.

Interesting post on Reading First Fate from former IRA president and member of the National Reading Panel

Many people have not read the Youtube Community Guidelines. You should report any videos that break these rules to youtube - everyone should have a youtube account and be able to do this. Today, a student had a bad video linked to hers -- I had to go to another place to report the other video but you can do this! Guidelines: "Don't Cross the Line Here are some common-sense rules that will help you steer clear of trouble: * YouTube is not for pornography or sexually explicit content. If this describes your video, even if it's a video of yourself, don't post it on YouTube. Also, be advised that we work closely with law enforcement and we report child exploitation. Please read our Safety Tips and stay safe on YouTube. * Don't post videos showing bad stuff like animal abuse, drug abuse, under-age drinking and smoking, or bomb making. * Graphic or gratuitous violence is not allowed. If your video shows someone being physically hurt, attacked, or humiliated, don't post it. * YouTube is not a shock site. Don't post gross-out videos of accidents, dead bodies or similar things intended to shock or disgust. * Respect copyright. Only upload videos that you made or that you are authorized to use. This means don't upload videos you didn't make, or use content in your videos that someone else owns the copyright to, such as music tracks, snippets of copyrighted programs, or videos made by other users, without necessary authorizations. read our Copyright Tips for more information. * We encourage free speech and defend everyone's right to express unpopular points of view. But we don't permit hate speech (speech which attacks or demeans a group based on race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, and sexual orientation/gender identity). * Things like predatory behavior, stalking, threats, harassment, intimidation, invading privacy, revealing other people's personal information, and inciting others to commit violent act

A Note to Teachers and Parents These sites provide actvities that practice reading skills. Almost all these have a sound component so that the children can hear the stories. Some sites provide reading comprehension practice. When children use these sites, ask them to reflect on what they learned from them.

Attention: 4th and 5th Grade Teachers Starting February 1, 2010, join @ewitt43 as he invites you and your class on a reading adventure with classes from around the country. They will be discussing and reading the story "The Invention of Hugo Cabret." It is an amazing story that takes the students on an adventure of over 500 pages of words and illustrations. He does this as a read aloud and the students will be answering the questions on the blog on their own so they can communicate with other students of similar age.

This is a cool opportunity for teachers who have smartboards -how about pulling this ebook up onto your screen to read together and then take the quiz. This one is free. In my email: "Each month, Sylvan Dell will feature a different eBook for free at www.SylvanDellPublishing.com! View the entire eBook in English and Spanish, absolutely free with no login required. Just click and read! April's featured eBook is one of our newest titles, Newton and Me, about a boy and his dog, Newton. Join them as they discover the laws of force and motion in thier everyday activities. After reading, take the quizzes and complete the For Creative Minds activities on the Newton homepage. Great for a fun, educational summer activity!"

Pull this ebook up on your interactive whiteboard to read together and then take the quiz.

"Many people know the benefits of reading, as whole new worlds, opportunities and adventures can open up to help enhance knowledge of the world around us, but getting some young people to read quality can be like extracting teeth!"

As some friends and I have been talking on my Facebook fanpage about how much grading and planning we're doing over Winter break, Chris Fancher shared his wish for teachers on the page which relates. While I don't agree that kids are "{products" I do know that I have to spend quite a bit of extra time to have any hope of considering myself a good teacher. It is a thought provoking read challenging us to be more. WE're all getting so much out of Twitter (many of us are) and the off-time things we're doing and sharing, so you might want to think about it and read his post. Chris says: "My wish for 2013 is that the 2 or 3 teachers who read this go out and find someone on their campus who they can get together with outside of "normal" hours.  Then these same teachers need to get on twitter and find a group of teachers who is on twitter at times they are on and are willing to interact and help with plans and ideas.  Then these same teachers need to pick one day a week when they can devote to a twitter chat and start being an active participant. My wish is that every student has a teacher who is willing to do whatever it takes to make sure they are receiving the best education available. "

I agree. Students who got to read the passages ahead of time had an advantage - of course, is anyone looking to see if there was a "hit" on other textbook passages - is this luck or is it corruption. Either way - it smells like corruption. There is a conflict of interest if you're testing and selling textbooks to help kids do better on testing.  "students who read the Pearson test before seeing it on the state test had the opportunity to fill the gaps in their own knowledge-whether through class discussion or simply by reading and answering the questions provided in the curriculum-before they took the test. And that means that the validity of a test that aims to differentiate between "good" and "poor" readers is necessarily called into question. Unfortunately, it seems that New York education officials don't realize how significant this problem is. Or even that it is a problem. (Meryl Tisch, New York Board of Regents chancellor, actually defended the quality of the assessments, boasting that, thanks to a rigorous new quality-control review, the Department of Education had avoided the kinds of problems that lead to last year's now-famous pineapple scandal. And that failure to recognize what may be a far more serious and consequential challenge may be the biggest red flag that Common Core assessment decisions are in trouble in the Empire State."

But the excuses and lead is a great post for administrators to read. Spawned as he watched excuse after excuse scroll past his Twitterfall from a Twitterchat, this excellent post is worth a read. Further proof that when we connect, we put our finger on the pulse of changed and have the conversations that need to happen. read and respond. Great job, Dave!

I want to point out one of the first blogs I ever read and one I've continued to read since I started building my PLN in 2005 -- Stephen Downes is one of the best resource sharers on the web. He's widely read and interjects his opinions and big picture issues into the conversation. I highly recommend that though leaders and researchers subscribe to his daily updates via RSS or email.

Reading is a Problem-Solving Process. Why Not Try the Thumb Method? New blog post by Denise Finley about supporting students while they learn to Read scientifically!