The Book Search

We just finished our Scholastic book fair.  I love the book fair.  I love how exciting it is!  Brand new books!  Lots of colorful displays!  Books I've never heard of before!  Shopping!  But as much fun as it is, I'm always happy to pack it up and go back to the regular media center where its peaceful and fairly quiet and I know where (most) everything is.  And I don't have to handle money. One of the best things about the book fair is getting to read all the new books.  I had a head start this year since I've been using Netgalleys.  Netgalleys.com is a free website that allows you to register and then read books (using an electronic device) before they are published in exchange for reviewing them.  I'm always happy to give my opinion (just ask anyone around me!) so for me, it works out pretty well!  But at the book fair, there were several books that I hadn't seen (in book stores or on Netgalley). The first one is by one o...

When I talk with other elementary school librarians, they are often concerned about the amount of non fiction their students are reading.  The Common Core puts more emphasis on reading non fiction, which is what most adults read (like newspapers and professional documents) so it's important that kids learn to read non fiction as well.  The funny thing is, at my school, which is a public Montessori school, my shelf of books that needs to be put away is ALWAYS heavy on non fiction.  I like to think it's because the Montessori method encourages the teachers to teach from scientific concepts and tends to minimize fantasy, it's probably because it's more complicated to put the non fiction books away and with the amount of time I have to shelve books (the five minutes between classes doesn't allow for a lot of contemplation!) Anyway, I've been reading some really great non-fiction as advanced readers copies through a group called Netgalley.  It's been an awesome...

I've been noticing that my students have been struggling with vocabulary for many years.  When I did my master's degree (through Walden University back in the last century), I did my master's project on effective vocabulary instruction, so I read a lot of vocabulary research back then.  It turns out, things haven't really changed. In "Young Children" July 2010, Tanya Christ and and X. Christine Wang tell us Some children come to school know- ing far fewer words than others. Hart and Risley (1995) studied young chil- dren’s vocabulary development and found that when children from families with low incomes were 3 years old, they knew 600 fewer words than children  the same age from families with upper incomes. By grade 2, the gap widens to about 4,000 words (Biemiller & Slonim 2001). At my school, they are so concerned about the gap that they've purchased a new amazing vocabulary instructional program that only takes ...