Happy D.E.A.R. Day!

Posted by Jen Robinson on April 12, 2010 at 6:00 AM in Book Events

Today, April 12th, is National Drop Everything and Read Day (known as D.E.A.R. Day). D.E.A.R. Day is held on April 12th every year, in honor of Beverly Cleary's birthday. It is "a special reading celebration to remind and encourage families to make reading together on a daily basis a family priority." Partners in D.E.A.R. Day include The National Education Association (NEA); Parent Teacher Association (PTA); the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association; Reading Rockets; The General Federation of Women's Clubs (GFWC); the Newspaper Association of America Foundation (NAA); First Book; HarperCollins Children's Books; Read Kiddo Read; Walden Media and, of course, Ramona Quimby.

This year, the official spokesperson for D.E.A.R. Day is Joey King, who plays Ramona in the Ramona and Beezus movie, due in theaters July 23rd. Ramona, of course, advises on the D.E.A.R. website that kids "check out all the great books Beverly Cleary wrote about me and Read It Before You See It!"

While there will be D.E.A.R. events held at schools and libraries around the US, all you really need to do to participate is take 30 minutes out of your day, wherever you are, to drop everything and read. Here at Booklights, of course, we suggest spending those 30 minutes reading with a child, if you can. But reading on your own counts, too (though I'd suggest reading books over reading blogs, if you want to be true to the spirit of the day).

The D.E.A.R. website has some wonderful lists of Drop Everything Reads, organized by age range, and compiled by "children's reading experts from Reach Out and Read, NEA, and Reading Rockets". In addition to the somewhat classics-heavy favorites lists, there are also suggested multi-cultural read-aloud titles for D.E.A.R. families, compiled by the Quicklists Consulting Committee of the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association.

How great is it that there's a day set aside to celebrate the sheer joy of reading? The fact that the irrepressible Ramona is the face of D.E.A.R. Day just makes the whole thing that much more fun. Happy D.E.A.R. Day. Enjoy!!

Tips for Growing Bookworms: Series Recap and Future Plans

Posted by Jen Robinson on April 5, 2010 at 6:00 AM in Literacy News, Recommendations

Back in 2007 I wrote a post for own blog about 10 Tips for Growing Bookworms. Over the past few months, I've been expanding upon and updating each of those original ten ideas here at Booklights. After all, helping parents to grow young readers is what we're all about at Booklights, right? It only made sense to share these tips here.

In today's post, I'm going to link to each of the 10 tips posts, as presented here at Booklights, so that they'll all be handy in one place.

1. Read Aloud
2. Read the Books Your Children Read
3. Choose Books that Your Children Enjoy
4. Make Sure Your Children Have Books of their Own
5. Visit Libraries and Bookstores
6. Read Yourself, and Model an Appreciation for Reading
7. Point Out When You're Learning Useful Information by Reading
8. Be Selective in Television Watching
9. Create Cozy Reading Spaces within Your Home, and Keep Books Handy
10. Let Them Stay Up Late Reading Under the Covers

It should be noted that the above tips owe a debt to the following references, all of which I read prior to writing the original post (versions updated here as appropriate). Any of these books would be an excellent place to start, in learning more about growing bookworms.

• The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease. My review.
• How to Get Your Child to Love Reading: For Ravenous and Reluctant Readers Alike by Esmé Raji Codell.
• Reading Magic: Why Reading Aloud to Our Children Will Change Their Lives Forever by Mem Fox.
• Raising a Reader: Make Your Child a Reader for Life by Paul Kropp.
• The Gift of Reading by David Bouchard.

I'd also add Donalyn Miller's The Book Whisperer to my list of recommendations, of course. That hadn't been published yet when I wrote the original set of tips.

I would love to know if there are other tips that you'd like to share to help parents and teachers in encouraging young readers. In my mind, there's no particular reason why the list has to stop at ten tips, after all. Any suggestions? If anything here in the comments (or elsewhere) inspires me, I'll add further entries to the series. Thanks for reading, and for caring about growing bookworms!!