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    Celebrating Literacy Leadership: John Guthrie

    By Alina O'Donnell
     | Oct 05, 2017

    GJohn Guthrieuthrie is the recipient of the William S. Gray Citation of Merit Award, recognizing a nationally or internationally known individual for his or her outstanding contributions to the field of reading/literacy. To learn about 2018 award and grant opportunities, visit our Awards & Grants page.

    John Guthrie has devoted his career to exploring what he believes is the “big, empty hole in human development for reading”—motivation.

    He discovered this uncharted territory while serving as codirector of the National Reading Research Center, funded by the U.S. Department of Education.

    “The theme was motivation and engagement. We said, let’s shine a light on this topic that hasn’t gotten high awareness. What are motivators for students, and what kinds of classroom contexts and teacher practices boost motivation and engagement?” Guthrie recalls.

    Guthrie’s research focuses on the positive relationship between reading motivation and literacy achievement. He says skill and will go hand in hand.

    “If a student is relatively well motivated in several different ways, they then become engaged in reading. They’re putting out effort, following their passion for reading. Motivations drive effort, energy, and enjoyment,” Guthrie says.

    Guthrie, who received both his master’s and doctoral degrees in educational psychology from the University of Illinois, began his career as an assistant professor of education and project director of the Center for Social Organization of Schools at Johns Hopkins University. In addition to his stint at the National Reading Research Center, he has served as the director of research for ILA and director of the Center for Educational Research and Development at the University of Maryland, College Park.

    Although he retired in 2007, Guthrie is currently involved in four research projects examining motivation in digital literacy. Like the field itself, his research has evolved to reflect the increasing multimodality of 21st-century texts.

    Guthrie says his research is helping to establish new tools in digital literacy engagement. Right now, he’s studying how computer systems can teach struggling readers in a way that’s motivationally adaptive (responds to the motivation of kids), helping teachers to develop practices that inspire a fuller range of motivations.

    When asked how he felt about receiving ILA’s William S. Gray Citation of Merit, Guthrie says he is humbled to receive an award named after one of his idols.

    “William S. Gray was my hero when I was working at ILA. He was one of my inspirations in terms of how he read and how he wrote and what he did,” Guthrie says. “It is a special honor to have this award linked to him.”

    Alina O'Donnell is the editor of Literacy Daily.

     

    Guthrie is the recipient of the William S. Gray Citation of Merit Award, recognizing a nationally or internationally known individual for his or her outstanding contributions to the field of reading/literacy. To learn about 2018 award and grant...Read More
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    Seven Resources You Need to Start Global Read Aloud 2017

    By Alina O'Donnell
     | Oct 03, 2017

    Global Read AloudSeven years ago, Wisconsin-based seventh-grade teacher Pernille Ripp had an idea for a global collaboration project that would connect educators and students through read-aloud. An immigrant herself, Ripp believed in the power of books to break down biases and broaden understandings.

     “When I think about global collaboration—it’s because we need to make the world smaller. We need to stop being so afraid of others,” Ripp said. “We need to teach our kids about the outside world or allow them to start experiencing it.”

    Since then, Global Read Aloud (GRA) has gained serious traction—reaching more than 2,000,000 students across 60 countries. For the next six weeks (ending in mid-November) educators from around the world will pick a book to read aloud to students while making as many global connections as possible through social media, video chat, blogging, and other mediums.

    It’s not too late to join—just visit globalreadaloud.com to learn more and sign up, and then browse the list of resources below to get started:

    • This video, which explains how Ripp was inspired to start GRA, how the movement has grown, and how your classroom can participate
    • This archived Google Hangout conversation on the benefits of reading aloud, featuring Ripp, Steven L. Layne, author and professor of literacy education at Judson University in Illinois, and Jennifer Estrada, director of the HerStory Campaign for LitWorld
    • The Global Read Aloud Official Board on Pinterest, where Ripp shares GRA ideas
    • This open Google Sheet, where educators can contribute their own resources (or share ideas they have found online) for participating in GRA
    • The official Twitter hashtag for this year, #GRA17, as well as the following, book-specific individual hashtags:

    Alina O'Donnell is the editor of Literacy Daily.

    Seven years ago, Wisconsin-based seventh-grade teacher Pernille Ripp had an idea for a global collaboration project that would connect educators and students through read-aloud. An immigrant herself, Ripp believed in the power of books to break...Read More
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    Celebrating Literacy Leadership: Peggy Semingson

    By Alina O'Donnell
     | Sep 28, 2017

    Peggy SemingsonSemingson is the recipient of the Jerry Johns Outstanding Teacher Educator in Reading Award, which recognizes a long-standing commitment to engaging, student-centered teaching and support. To learn about 2018 award and grant opportunities, visit our Awards & Grants page.

    When it comes to online literacy education, Peggy Semingson has always been ahead of the trends. She started her blog, Literacy Update, in 2004, before the channel had reached the mainstream. Today, she continues to shares her literacy expertise on her podcast and YouTube channel, which recently hit one million minutes of viewings.

    Semingson’s success in her online channels is proof of the power of self-directed learning tools, one of her research interests.  

    “I asked myself, how do we empower students to do their own learning, their own self-directed learning?” she says.

    Semingson first became interested in literacy studies while pursuing her doctorate in curriculum and instruction at the University of Texas at Austin. A lifelong reader and former philosophy major, she has an innate curiosity about the reading process, and spent most of her time as a student reading and writing about reading and writing.

    Currently, Semingson’s research focuses on frameworks that support online literacy teacher education. She is especially interested in socially distributed knowledge in online spaces, distributed cognition, and video-mediated discussion and dialogue. Currently, she’s looking at how teachers can nurture online communities and peer-to-peer knowledge sharing, which she says is more effective than passive learning.

    “The teacher has to build that infrastructure for communicating and fostering a social presence,” she says.

    Semingson believes the future of literacy teacher education will be more student centered. She celebrates open educational resources such as author blogs and media, videos and podcasts, free online journal articles, multimodal literacies, microlearning, and webinars that are making education accessible to a wider audience.

    “The whole nature of what it means to be a teacher is rapidly changing. Students have information at their fingertips and we need to help them facilitate their own learning,” she says.

    Alina O’Donnell is the editor of ILA’s blog, Literacy Daily.

    Semingson is the recipient of the Jerry Johns Outstanding Teacher Educator in Reading Award, which recognizes a long-standing commitment to engaging, student-centered teaching and support. To learn about 2018 award and grant opportunities, visit...Read More
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    How Teach Us All Hopes to Inspire a Student-Led Integration Movement

    By Alina O'Donnell
     | Sep 25, 2017

    Teach Us AllOn September 25, 1957, armed federal troops escorted nine African-American students past angry, white crowds and through the doors of Little Rock Central High School—a moment that continues to embody our nation’s struggle for true equity in education.  

    Timed to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the Little Rock school crisis, today marks the debut of the Netflix documentary Teach Us All. Directed by Sonia Lowman, the film examines the current realities of public school segregation and launches an impact campaign that will leverage community-based screenings, discussion forums, educational outreach, and more to advocate for meaningful policy changes.

    We had the privilege of hosting an early screening of the documentary at the ILA 2017 Conference & Exhibits in July, and it opened the doors to an honest, difficult, rule-breaking conversation about the stubborn persistence of structural racism and implicit bias in today’s education system.

    As educators, this historic anniversary is an opportunity to engage students in a meaningful conversation about the event’s impact on the civil rights movement, the resegregation of today’s schools, and the power of young students to effect social change. The following resources weave history, context, and personal narrative to provoke a powerful response in the classroom:

    Teach Us All will also publish Student Movements for School Equity and Integration,” a year-long elective course that equips high school students with the historical background, communication skills, collaborative work habits, and other problem-solving tools they need to be “conscious, compassionate, effective” agents of change in their communities.

    Watch the documentary on Netflix now or find a screening near you.

    Alina O’Donnell is the editor of Literacy Daily.

    On September 25, 1957, armed federal troops escorted nine African-American students past angry, white crowds and through the doors of Little Rock Central High School—a moment that continues to embody our nation’s struggle for true equity in...Read More
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    Year in Review: Catching Up With Some of ILA's 30 Under 30 Honorees

    By Maura C. Ciccarelli
     | Sep 21, 2017

    Jeff FondaA lot has happened since last September when ILA announced its 2016 class of 30 Under 30 honorees, a list that celebrates the up-and-coming generation of literacy champions. After hearing from Kathryn Lett at the Closing General Session of the ILA 2017 Conference & Exhibits, we also wanted to check in with her fellow honorees to see what they’ve been up to.

    Read on to see how some of their lives have changed and how they continued to change the lives of so many others in just the past year.

    Babar Ali, founder and headmaster of Ananda Siksha Niketan (“Home of Joyful Learning”) in Murshidabad, India, announced that the first floor of his new free school was constructed in early 2017, enabling even more students to enroll this year. Students also are taking part in a social forestry program to promote awareness of the problems around deforestation, and senior students are working with the school’s adult literacy program to spread learning wider in the community.

    Seventh-grade English teacher Alex Corbitt spent last year at his school, MS331 in the Bronx, New York, developing and facilitating a Teen Activism class that used current events to focus on social justice issues such as the prison industrial complex, racism in society, mental health, substance abuse, animal rights, and bullying. “The 2016–2017 school year was fraught with sociopolitical tragedy and confusion,” he says. “Our Teen Activism class created a space for my students and me to reflect, process, listen, and heal.”

    For Tanyella Evans, cofounder/CEO of the New York-based Library For All, the last year has seen close to 10,000 children from 50 schools in Haiti, Rwanda, Congo, Cambodia, and Mongolia get free access to their online reading library accessible by low-cost mobile devices. The library now includes 3,806 titles in seven languages. While creating the library, the group discovered a surprising gap: As many as 40% of people around the world are not learning to read a language they speak or understand. In response, Library For All launched writer workshops to teach local authors and illustrators how to publish e-books in their native language. The first two were held earlier this year in Haiti and another was hosted in Montreal, with members of the Haitian diaspora. Kids in Haiti got to “test read” print versions of some of the books. “They were delighted to see an entire stack of books written in their own language, with illustrations of Haitian children and landscape that remind them of home,” Evans says.

    Since last year, Jeff Fonda’s nonprofit, The Literate Earth Project, has opened three more libraries in Uganda: at Lwani Memorial College in Amuru District, Nkumba Quran Primary School in Entebbe District, and St. James Primary School in Entebbe District. The project, which is based in Pennsylvania, has now created 13 libraries and is on target to meet its goal of creating four each year.

    In Brazil, Gustavo Fuga’s 4You2 social program continues to teach English to help people access higher education opportunities and have the potential to earn an additional 64% in wages. This spring, the group further honed its teaching tools and methodology. “We would like to launch a literacy project for papers and research this year,” he says.

    Anneli Hershman, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology doctoral student, reports that her literacy app development team at the MIT Media Lab completed an extensive research pilot with families using their SpeechBlocks app in their homes. “It has been really exciting to see how we can incorporate families into the literacy learning process with our tools,” she says. The group is also researching the literacy learning process and creating new apps that go beyond a focus on learning and using individual words to emphasizing the importance of storytelling and self-expression to encourage literacy.

    Kathryn Lett, an EL teacher with Kentwood Public Schools in Michigan, says the school held its second annual Parade of Nations, where “students proudly waved their country’s flag while their nation’s anthem and classmates’ cheers played in the background.” After the parade, her school held a multicultural night and each class prepared presentations, games, and decor that focused on a country belonging to one of the classmates. “It was amazing to see my school come together for one common goal: to celebrate diversity as our strength and to eradicate the idea that differences equal deficits,” says Lett, who also serves on the board of the West Michigan Refugee Education and Cultural Center. Lett also began developing a literacy initiative to better equip non-English-speaking parents with helping their children learn to read. Parents will be provided with reading comprehension questions in their native languages so that they can provide literacy support in the home. 

    The LitPick Student Book Reviews program continues to grow, attracting even more students to write reviews for the website, says administrator Tynea Lewis, who is based in Pennsylvania. Some students have turned their written reviews into animated videos that are shown on the organization’s YouTube channel. She also has been volunteering as a judge for the Story Monsters LLC’s Dragonfly Book Awards. She adds, “I have completed a few children’s poetry manuscripts and am currently working on a larger project for an adult audience.”

    Sean T. Lynch, English department head for the Commonwealth Academy for Inner City Scholars in Massachusetts, is taking the gaming model he developed to help with reading skills and developing it into other areas that involve game-based teaching practices and student-directed learning. He is creating an experimental curriculum for the ELA classroom that uses narrative and text-based cell phone apps to get kids hooked. “I used the app ‘A Normal Lost Phone’ to great success in class,” he says. “It got students reading, instructed on social justice, and produced thoughtful responses. It turns out that I was misguided in my technophobia...the future of education I now believe is games and gaming.”

    Aarti Naik, founder of SAKHI for Girls’ Education in Mumbai, India, says her group has continued to expand its Girls Book Bank project, in which adolescent girls from SAKHI become “Reading Leaders” for their neighborhood. Each Sunday, they go door-to-door to give books to 20 girls and gather them together in fun activities to inspire reading, improve vocabulary, and build confidence. They also receive a monthly educational scholarship for their work. This spring, Naik was recognized for her work in the education category of the Femina Women Awards 2017.

    Deborah Ahenkorah Osei-Agyekum was pleased to report that her Accra, Ghana-based publishing company, African Bureau Stories, has produced its first books: two picture books and two early chapter books created by talented writers and illustrators from Ghana, Tanzania, South Africa, Egypt, and Nigeria to reflect the worlds of their young readers. “I’m launching a Ghana Corporates for Literacy project to partner with companies to place brand new, culturally relevant storybooks into the hands of children across Ghana, one classroom at a time,” she says.

    Ekaterina Popova, educator and researcher in Moscow, Russia, has been busy as secretary of the Reading Association of Russia with attracting new members. She helped launch a new e-mail-based digest that outlines best practices in reading and literacy, the Association’s research results, and new opportunities for members. In addition to developing a survey and processing data from the group’s longitudinal “Reading That Unites Us” research project (featured in the May/June 2017 issue of Literacy Today), she helped design a new project with colleagues called “Dialogue of Generations: Reading, Communication, and Social Behaviour.” The mission is to search for books and movies to create a unifying cultural platform that is significant for several generations.

    Matt Presser, formerly a teacher and coach at King-Robinson Inter-District Magnet School in Connecticut and now a doctoral student at Harvard University, designed a pen pal project between incarcerated teenagers and tenth graders he was working with in Boston. “My students were concerned about the effects of mass incarceration and wrote back and forth with incarcerated teens to understand their experiences,” he reports. “Their correspondence project had deep impact. It inspired my students to write to Boston Public Schools officials with recommended alternatives to suspension and to New York City teenagers to encourage them to lobby their state legislators about the Raise the Age legislation that their state was considering.” Presser is a 2017 recipient of Harvard’s Presidential Public Service Fellowship.

    Kelly Taylor, a teacher at Peel Language Development School in Perth, Australia, recently embarked on an action research project to collect evidence around using the arts as a pedagogical approach to teaching literacy in a special education context. “Specifically, I’m looking at how all aspects of the arts can be used to elicit and extend students’ vocabulary,” she says. She hopes the study will contribute to existing evidence that all students, regardless of their abilities and challenges, should be entitled to a learning environment rich in the arts to enhance their education. As a speaker at the ILA 2017 Conference, she shared strategies for empowering students with language delays.

    Arcadia Elementary School literacy coach Melissa Wells reports that she and her South Carolina–based school continue to focus on including family members as vital partners in students’ literacy development. The school’s library now has a Family Literacy Center that lets families check out bundles of books to read at home. In addition, Wells finished her dissertation and earned a doctorate in language and literacy from the University of South Carolina. “In the fall, I will be joining the education department faculty at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, VA, where my focus will be on early literacy,” she says. “I am excited to be working with our newest educators as they prepare to support students as readers, writers, and thinkers in their future classrooms.” Wells also presented her dissertation research at ILA 2017.

    For more information on the entire 2016 class of 30 Under 30 honorees, as well as the 2015 list, visit literacyworldwide.org/30under30.

    Do you know an educator or literacy advocate making an extraordinary impact in the lives of students and others in their community? Nominations for the next 30 Under 30 list, to be published in January 2019, are open. Submissions must be received by June 1, 2018. For more information, visit literacyworldwide.org/30under30.

    Maura CiccarelliMaura C. Ciccarelli is a freelance writer specializing in education and nonprofits as well as a wide variety of other topics.


    A lot has happened since last September when ILA announced its 2016 class of 30 Under 30 honorees, a list that celebrates the up-and-coming generation of literacy champions. After hearing from Kathryn Lett at the Closing General Session of the ILA...Read More
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