Reading Review Board

A Virtual Bookshelf

I learned about an intriguing site recently. It's called library thing, and it lets you set up a personalized, catalogued, organized bookshelf of your  books. By searching for the edition of the book you have or want to get, you'll find all the information about the book as well as a snapshot of the book jacket. Some of you will certainly want to try it out.

    

Is anyone familiar with this book?

I was just reading through some of the news sent out by NCTE in the weekly InBox, and I was especially intrigued by an article about boys and reading. The article, Making Learning a Guy Thing, is based on the book The Minds of Boys: Saving Our Sons from Falling Behind in Life and School, by Kathy Stevens (co-author). I recall reading one of your entries in the blog about the close relationship of reading and math, and I was immediately reminded of that as I read the article about a third-grade boy who was failing in math because he couldn't read directions.

Is this a book we should think about adding to our book club list? Please take a look at the article and share your knowledge of the book and researchers with the rest of us.

Carol 

AdLIT In Perspective

If you haven't checked the ORC home page in the last two days, you probably haven't yet seen the January In Perspective that was just launched. It's a particularly timely issue, focused on assessment and going beyond the teaching to the test mentality that we often hear about. The lead article by Janet Angelis is terrific and one you'll want to share with colleagues and teacher candidates or graduate students.

I started (finally) reading Choice Words and noticed that Janet Angelis is mentioned as a Langer-Applebee staff member who helped with the book. I read just enough of the book to discover that it is truly compelling. I've been aware of the classroom/teacher language for a long time -- ever since I read the Halliday study about the influence teacher talk (commands, inquiry, etc.) has on the school language and behaviors of young children. Pete Johnston takes it much farther, looking at student success as it's linked to classroom talk.

One more note about the new In Perspective -- ORC now has an AdLit weblog which Nicole aptly named blogTalk. Each article in the new issue of In Perspective has a link on the right that lets the reader comment on this issue. The link, of course, goes directly to blogTalk where Nicole and I posted topics and questions for discussion. We hope you'll help to get this feature started (especially since you're such experienced bloggers) by getting the discussion started. You might also want to use this feature for your students in graduate or teacher prep classes. We really want teachers to comment on the magazine, but sometimes it takes a while to people used to this. If you can help us jump-start the discussion, Nicole and I will be eternally grateful!

Carol

Math LD is topic of Mayo research report

You'll probably be interested in reading about this research study on Math LD from Mayo Clinic. I was intrigued by a couple of things. The first is that the problem is never referred to as dyscalcula but only as Math LD. That made me wonder whether or not they are the same disorder or whether the name for the disorder has changed. The other is the link between Math LD and Reading LD.

Judy Spicer, a mathematics specialist at ORC, shared the article with me and promised to look into the issue. By the way, Judy's currently reading my copy of My Thirteenth Winter, so of course, she shared the article with me.

Carol

Welcome to ORC's Reading Blog!

Hi! Welcome to our first blog conversation! On pages 10-12 in "Best Practice" (third edition), Zemelman, Daniels and Hyde describe principles of "Best Practice" across the curriculum. As an ORC reviewer, what do you look for in a website for evidence that it is a "good" or "best" practice? Does their list have value for us as reviewers of electronic resources?  Let's share our thoughts!