Hello and welcome to a busy Saturday at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is July 16th.
On this day Amazon sold its first book in 1995. Four years ago, I listened to a speaker who had worked at Amazon in those early days. The first question he asked was, "Do you remember what Amazon was when it first started?" An online bookseller. I didn't remember until he said so, memories getting lost in my "recent order" memory catalog of anything but books. I was in good company, however, because most of the large writerly audience didn't remember either. The irony didn't escape my attention.
Also on this day Catcher in the Rye was published in 1951. I loved this book so much as a teenager that I read it twice - something I never do. The first time I read it was in English class in high school. The second time I read it was in English class as a foreign exchange student in Belgium. I have two memories from the English class. The first: doing a timed test on irregular verb conjugations for present - past - past perfect, for example, come - came - come, give - gave - given. As a native English speaker, I'd never been tasked with whizzing through verb conjugations in 60 seconds. As I clunked my way through sing-sang-sung and the like, my Belgian peers sailed through in the few minutes allotted with near-perfect scores. I think I got three-fourths through the pop quiz and only got about that many correct. My second memory of Belgian English class was the question: "What is the significance of the red hat?" I couldn't tell you then and I'd have to google it to tell you now. I would read this book again in a heartbeat, though, especially if any of my kids' English teachers assigned it to them.
Summer is a wonderful time for reading. Last week, my Author Accelerator-certified book coach peep Sara Gentry published the article Five Ways to Include Your Children in Your Writing Life This Summer. Her first hot summer tip is to share the joy of reading. She works with kids, she teaches kids, and she writes for kids. She knows what she's talking about. When I needed some ideas to keep kids reading during the summer, Sara is the one I contacted.
I'd already devised a plan for a star chart - one star per one unit of (timed) reading per kid. Charts don't come naturally to me. Honestly, I sort of loathe them. As soon as I start keeping track - checking the boxes every day of this or that - I start plotting skip days and free days. However, the soon-to-be Fifth Grader had worked incredibly hard on her reading skills, closing an achievement gap during fourth grade. I knew I had to set aside my own dislike of charts lest she regress in her reading progress. So star chart it would have to be.
"Five starts gets you a prize!" I announced. But what would the reward be? This is when I turned to Sara. She suggested the kids come up with suggestions, write them on slips of paper, and put them in a jar. For every five stars, they swirl their hand in the jar and pull out a reward. Brilliant! I didn't know what they were writing on the slips of paper - but that was part of the fun.
I was a little nervous when the first kid redeemed a "prize" from the jar, but it turned out the rewards were reasonable. "Take $10 out of my bank account," "Buy Pokemon cards," "Game time on mom's computer," "Five M&M's" (which I actually happened to have on that particular day). They had some funny ones too, such as "Mom gives me 1 cent." The First Grader thought he was being clever when he added, "Nothing!" only to find it not-so-funny when he was the recipient of said prize. I let him pick again. The older kids tell me I've gone soft."
Halfway through summer, it's still working! Even though I'm not a fan of charts, I am a fan of reading.
Another perk to summer is the local library's summer reading program. Wednesday is our designated library day when kids do an art activity and pick a new book. The librarian sweetens the deal by letting them pick prizes from a treasure box (the Second Grader has used his goodies as play toys for the new kitty) and putting kids' names in a drawing for bigger prizes (the Fifth Grader won a $5 Caribou Coffee gift card!)
And the best part of summer is kids can read whatever they want. No AR tests to worry about, no reading within your reading level range. Kids can skip their fingers over the bindings and pick any book they want. Some of our selections have been:
Attack of the Stuff
I Really Want To Be First!
When Stars Are Scattered
Scaredy Squirrel Gets a Surprise
Warriors. Skyclan & the Stranger. #3, After the Flood
Dog Man Unleashed
Dog Man and Cat Kid
Look Closer Ocean
Everything You Need To Know About Dinosaurs: And Other Prehistoric Creatures
Undersea Creatures : [Extreme Encounters With Aquatic Beasts]
Guts. #3
Pete the Kitty and The Case of the Hiccups
For Whom the Ball Rolls. #7
Mapping Sam
Crossover, Booked and Marcus Makes a Movie, age 11
Dick and Jane and Friends (old school reading book), age 5
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, age 5
And from my own crew of older kids:
The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music (of Dave Grohl)
Pendragon series
In her article, Sara reminds parents that kids of all ages (yes, even teenagers!) love to be read to. With the younger ones, we finished Book #8, The Outcast, in the Guardians of Ga'Hoole series this past week. (And one chapter into Pippi Longstocking.) With the olders, I'll be playing The Diamond Eye audiobook by Kate Quinn on the next road trip which happens to be tomorrow.
On This Day
Historic Highlights (credits)
Happy Birthday to You!🎶
Remembering You
Kim
The red hat? DNA testing has shown that Elmer Fudd was Holden’s father.
ReplyDeleteThat’s all folks.
Totes, obvs! ;)
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