CREATING A CULTURE OF LITERACY . . .

With the FAMILY READING PARTNERSHIP.

Creating 

Culture of Literacy 

Checklists.

 

Mem Fox's 

Read-Aloud Commandments

Visit Mem Fox's website at: www.memfox.net

• 1. Spend at least ten wildly happy minutes every single day reading aloud.
• 2. Read at least three stories a day: it may be the same story three times. Children need to hear a thousand stories before they can begin to learn to read.
• 3. Read aloud with animation. Listen to your own voice and don’t be dull, or flat, or boring. Hang loose and be loud, have fun and laugh a lot.
• 4. Read with joy and enjoyment: real enjoyment for yourself and great joy for the listeners.
• 5. Read the stories that the kids love, over and over and over again, and always read in the same ‘tune’ for each book: i.e. with the same intonations on each page, each time.
• 6. Let children hear lots of language by talking to them constantly about the pictures, or anything else connected to the book; or sing any old song that you can remember; or say nursery rhymes in a bouncy way; or be noisy together doing clapping games.

THE LIST CONTINUES HERE.

A HISTORIC WEEK IN EGYPT

Presented by:

THE BIG PICTURE

*

Light By Which I Read

   by Eric Pankey

One does not turn to the rose for shade, nor the charred song of the 
      redwing for solace.
This past I patch with words is a flaw in the silvering, 
                                                         memory seen 
        through to.
There I find the shallow autumn waters, the three stolen pears,
The horizon edged with chalk, loose where the fabric frayed.
Each yesterday glacier-scored, each a dark passage illumined by a 
       honeycomb.

                                  *

I begin to fathom the brittle intricacy of the window’s scrim of ice.
For years, I managed without memory—stalled, unnumbered, 
       abridged— 
No more alive than a dismembered saint enthroned in two hundred 
       reliquaries.
Now, it is hard not to say I remember, 
                                      hard, in fact, not to remember.
Now, I hear the filament’s quiver, its annoying high frequency, light 
       by which I read.

                                  *

River mist, mudbanks, and rushes mediate the dark matter 
Between two tomorrows: 
                      one an archive of chance effects, 
The other a necropolis of momentary appearances and sensations.
One, a stain of green, where a second wash bleeds into the first.
The other time-bound, fecund, slick with early rain.

                                  *

As if to impose a final hermeneutic, all at once the cicadas wind down.
The gooseberry bush looms like a moon: each berry taut, sour, aglow.
The creek runs tar in the cloud-light, mercury at dusk.
Then the frogs start up. 
                        Clay-cold at the marrow. A hollow pulse-tick.
And it seems, at last, I’ve shed my scorched and papery husk.

Copyright 2005.

SPRING IS ON THE HORIZON

Punxsutawney Phil failed to see his shadow today, meaning only two more weeks of winter,

theoretically at any rate. 

For those of us living in places where "winter" is a euphemism for "don't forget your sweater," this might not seem like an earth shattering pronouncement. But for those intrepid souls who remain miserable, slammed with storms and temperatures that are much better to reminisce about than live through, this news is welcome, indeed.

How I love telling my tale of leaving Pennsylvania for California in the midst of the fifth major storm in three weeks. Or was it the eigth storm in four days? No matter. Ah! The good old day!

The important part of the story is that it was many years ago and I tell it while looking out at the blooming azaleas, paper-whites, roses and daisies in my garden. The poppies are up but not blooming yet.

Anyone who is even remotely acquainted with gardening would recognize that not all of these plants are contemporaries. Some should be blooming while others are getting their beauty sleep. 

All of nature seems a bit confused these days.

Let's hope Phil, at least, sees clearly.

READING . . .

Berthe Morisot

The first woman to join the circle of the French impressionist painters

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"its nice to see women who look like my mom/grandma

hoping to overthrow a government."

Aden on Tumblr,

commenting on a family photo by

monasosh, an Egyptian Flickr user.

TO FOLLOW THE HAPPENINGS IN EGYPT:

Al Jazeera Live Feed.     Home page.

On Twitter - #Egypt.

Enduring America's Live Blog.     Home page.

ALSO:
Some FACTS about the US / Al Jazeera relationship, in case you're concerned.

The Land of Story-books

   by Robert Louis Stevenson

At evening when the lamp is lit,
Around the fire my parents sit;
They sit at home and talk and sing,
And do not play at anything.

Now, with my little gun, I crawl
All in the dark along the wall,
And follow round the forest track
Away behind the sofa back.

There, in the night, where none can spy,
All in my hunter's camp I lie,
And play at books that I have read
Till it is time to go to bed.

These are the hills, these are the woods,
These are my starry solitudes;
And there the river by whose brink
The roaring lions come to drink.

I see the others far away
As if in firelit camp they lay,
And I, like to an Indian scout,
Around their party prowled about.

So, when my nurse comes in for me,
Home I return across the sea,
And go to bed with backward looks
At my dear land of Story-books.

I'VE ALWAYS RESISTED THE DESTRUCTION OF BOOKS. BUT. . .

BETTER ART THAN TRASH!

Issac Salazar, AKA Book Of Art, turns discarded books into some interesting and occasionally thoughtful pieces of art. Catch his Flicker Photostream here.

My favorite is "Read Cursive."

Art.    Made from a book.    Says 'read.'

It's deep!