Blog Archives
national book festival 2012: why families need to go
My favorite event of the year–the National Book Festival & Gala-was just a few weeks ago, and so many of my pals have asked why I love this event so ...
halloween learning ideas — silly and scary literacy, math, and science
Halloween is in the air, and though we’ve just gotten around to decorating our house, we never do a lot of scary Halloween over here. We always stick to the ...
family bucket fillers: eBooks for the Barlows
We’re really making an effort over here to do more ‘bucket filling’. After reading one of the sweetest books ever, How Full is Your Bucket? For Kids, by Tom Rath ...
3 ways to talk to your kids about books
I remember a time, not so long ago, when Maddy, Owen, and Cora would talk to me for (what seemed to be) hours upon end about things. Just anything. Books, ...
how to make summer reading FUN for your kids
For many children, summer reading is not a big deal. They’re readers by nature, so the task of reading ten books–or more–is a simple pleasure. For others, however, summer reading ...
kicking off summer reading: backyard book party
The school year is slowly winding down, and finally (finally!) we’re settling into our summertime schedule–not the spring-summer overlap that has had me near crazy for the last two weeks. ...
homemade alphabet book: get personal with the abc’s
There’s been a ton of little things that we’ve done over here to help Maddy, Owen, and Cora learn the letters of the alphabet, but I have to say that ...
quick trick: take reading on the road
A few weeks ago, I took the kids to Pennsylvania for the weekend–another solo trip and one I’ve done dozens of times before. But what I realized is that the ...
learning during read-alouds: what IS reading?
So. . . what IS reading? Is it the ability to read a single word on a page? Is it the ability to read every single word on a page? ...
10 tips for read-aloud learning
Hip, hip HOORAY! This week has a little gem of a day hiding inside — World Read Aloud Day! March 7th is World Read Aloud Day, and I stand firmly ...
learning during read-alouds: improving fluency
Fluency is a tricky–but totally important–element of reading comprehension. No. Question. About it. And though research is funny about fluency’s roll in reading comprehension, I’m a firm believer in the ...
