Make room for conversation & create opportunities to talk face-to face with your children.
May 6, 2012
I am an enthusiast for conversation and I firmly believe we need to make room for it by creating opportunities to talk face-to face with our children. Good conversations are where children acquire the vocabulary they need to become good readers. Talking with children is how we best prepare them to enter school, ready to […]
A Vitamin For the Spirit.
April 25, 2012
Take poetry off the mantle and celebrate Poem in Your Pocket Day. All too often poetry is saved for occasions—happy or sad. I advocate taking poetry out of this exalted position. Instead, treat poetry as if it were a vitamin for the spirit. Poetry calls for being shared. J.M. Barrie Second star to the right […]
Reading for pleasure is a luxury we can all afford.
April 12, 2012
April 12 is Drop Everything and Read Day. Beverly Cleary’s birthday and D.E.A.R. are celebrated on the same day for good reason. Ramona Quimby enjoys D.E.A.R.in Cleary’s book, Ramona Quimby, Age 8. The day is meant to celebrate, remind and encourage families to make reading together a family priority on a daily basis. Reading for […]
A runcible spoon and a classic tribute to interspecies romance.
March 26, 2012
The aim of National Poetry Month is to encourage people to enjoy poetry. Though the aim is noble, I think we sometimes, with the best of intentions, ‘kill off’ the very poetry we are tying to encourage people to love. All too often poems feel like codes that need to be cracked. I personally meet […]