As the Thanksgiving holiday closes and the Christmas holiday season is underway, it is increasingly easy to feel heaps of gratitude. That gratitude comes from many places, including time spent with family and friends, amazing meals, and a warm house that provides shelter from the snow that found its way to the Midwest. Among all … [Read more…]
My sister, Katie, sent a new podcast recommendation the other day. My siblings and I were instantly intrigued. The title, alone, was enough to spark intrigue. In addition, Question Everything, by Brian Reed, is a “spin-off” of his award-winning, and perhaps controversial, podcast, S-Town. I knew within the first few minutes of listening on Friday … [Read more…]
This post was started just over two weeks ago. The flu bug hit, so I was down and out for awhile. As I write today, I am enjoying the end of a week-long spring break, wishing I had my full pre-flu energy back, still unsure about the situation I wrote about below, and hoping for … [Read more…]
APM’s journalist, Emily Hanford and colleagues, have done it once again. They have taken a complex topic and made understanding of it attainable for any listener. They have shed light on contributors to our literacy crisis in episodes 1 – 10 of the Sold a Story podcast, and in the last 2 weeks have released … [Read more…]
The loooooooong wait is over! I have been revisiting this page from The Reading League’s website for months, waiting for the state of Iowa to turn dark blue, indicating that we have a Reading League Chapter. It’s official: The Reading League Iowa is now part of the Chapter Network! The Story On a Friday afternoon … [Read more…]
The 10th episode of Sold a Story was released last week, and has done what good journalism does: it has made its listeners think. As always, Emily Hanford and Christopher Peak of APM Reports have given me great pause. The only thing stopping me from listening to the entire Sold a Story series again is … [Read more…]
I was thrilled to be joined by eight other educators from Fort Madison Community School District at the Decoding Dyslexia Iowa Conference this past week. We were treated to a host of sessions that furthered our knowledge around dyslexia and structured literacy. Our keynote speaker on Thursday morning was Mindy VanZuiden, a reading tutor and … [Read more…]
The Learning Journey As I’ve written before, I’ve dedicated much of the last four years of my life to learning about the Science of Reading. Four years in, I fully recognize that there is much, much more to learn – from the body of research that currently exists, and from the body of research that … [Read more…]
In the spirit of this Thanksgiving week, this post is dedicated to those things for which I am presently most grateful for. Each picture included in the post is worth a thousand words… to me, anyway, as they represent my immense gratitude! I am stealing George Couros’s weekly email format: I will be writing about … [Read more…]
Literacy Advocates Take Action Emily Hanford has done it again. She and colleague, Christopher Peak, have poured blood, sweat, and tears into the podcast, Sold a Story, that reveals, once again, the cause of the literacy crisis in America. Hanford is the reason that I, and so many others, have shifted our way of thinking … [Read more…]