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"The 7th edition of the Scholastic Kids and Family Reading Report was released last month. Scholastic presents the results of a survey, managed by YouGov, of 2758 adults and children. This biannual report is, I think, one of the best windows into what families are doing and thinking when it comes to kids' reading. I'm in the process of going through the material and there are certainly causes for optimism overall. However, one of the major  findings hit me hard: The Decline by Nine". Author discusses some results and how she intends to overcome them

Teach Your Monster to Read is a great series of online games designed to help students improve the speed and accuracy with which they recognize letters and sounds. The website gets its name from the friendly monster avatars that students help learn to read through the course of the games.

"If you don't have a Kindle, you can download Kindle for PC for free. There are also Kindle apps for iPad and iPod, as well as Droid. Amazon frequently runs freebies on books for the Kindle, but there are many books that are always free. This post lists/links some of the free Kindle books available. It is no way exhaustive, but begin to get a collection started by to collecting classic children's literature on the Kindle

Interesting article. Some children's books look/sound fabulous on a tablet. Tap the screen and hear/see action. "But does this count as story time? Or is it just screen time for babies? It is a question that parents, pediatricians and researchers are struggling to answer as children's books, just like all the other ones, migrate to digital media."

"Some good Chrome apps to help you enhance your online reading experience. The extensions we curated for you today allow you to create a comfortable reading environment where you can enjoy your reading with no distractions and no eye strain. Using these apps will enable you to eliminate  ads and flash animations from your page, browse multi-page articles in one, seamless view, disable surrounding webpage noise and clutter and many more."

"There's no doubt that the experience of reading online is different than reading in print, but does it affect comprehension? While several studies have found student comprehension and retention are lower on digital devices, could it be that students just need to learn the right tools to enhance their digital reading? Maria Konnikova explores the research and theories behind reading in her New Yorker column."

Pinterest board with examples of Book faces and related photographs

Examples of book faces

To assist with motivating readers this site offers some printable reading logs that can be coloured in as books are read.

The Open Library is a part of the Internet Archive. It is a collection of more than one million free e-book titles. The collection is cataloged by a community of volunteer online librarians. The ebooks in the Open Library can be read online, downloaded to a computer, read on a Kindle or other e-readers and embedded into other sites. Some of the ebooks, like Treasure Island, can also be listened to through the Open Library.

How to teach text structures for better reading comprehension and improved retention. Teachers of history, science, and other subjects are now expected to weave literacy instruction into their teaching of content. But how should they do that? What are the most effective ways to help students learn to read challenging content-area texts? This article breaks down the research behind explicit teaching of text structures and includes a video that shows how to do it (Great for content-area literacy)

"When the best new media tools are expertly selected and appropriately used with children, such tools can support and enhance adults' role in supporting development of the whole child, especially three-to-eight year-olds, the focus of this article. Used to complement rather than replace print, the finest ebooks, enhanced ebooks, and book apps (collectively referred to here as "ebooks") on the market put traditional picture book content in new containers that-like traditional print books-educate and entertain."

Many are askin "What's the best way promote the library's digital collection to patrons visiting the physical branch?   This post shares some ideas used by staff members at Sacramento Public Library who came up with a clever way to connect its physical and digital collections. " The Electronic resources librarian Amy Calhoun explains how Sacramento PL has improved discovery of eBook titles among patrons visiting the library branches"

"A post that looks at reading reflection prompts and forms. A few different ideas for assisting students to get "points" in any reading program. They are a student-centered approach it takes, and could be useful across content areas. " It's primarily about the craft of writing and elements of style, but 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, and several others would work after reading almost anything."

"10 activities to use with any nonfiction book or other informational text. The goal was to get kids more engaged in reading. They are simple but effective and could be adapted in a variety Of ways.

An interesting, annotated list of books for reading aloud to students

Printable Reading Bingo containing 24 reading challenges that will help you read more and have more fun with it.

"An anchor chart that shows the progression from a 1-star Post-it note to a 4-star Post-it note for upper elementary students based on the Say Something Post-it Note reading strategy."