From A to Z: Literacy Treasures

We posted about this story on our Facebook wall, but I wanted to share this with all my followers as well. First let me say that I am totally guilty of not always reading to my kids at night. Lets face it, sometimes we parents are so tired we can barely keep standing. Even before reading this story I had made a secret promise to myself that I would fight the urge to just put my kids to bed and I will read them at least one story every night. No matter what.

After reading this story I am more committed to that than ever. I should never ever take for granted the fact that I can read, and therefore can read to my children.
Please read the story and get inspired yourself!

A new learning center is opening in Massachusetts. A one stop shop for all adult learning needs. We need more of these all over the US.

"Lives will change as a result of this building," said Robert Pura, president of Greenfield Community College. "Lives will change for the better."

Read the story on gazettenet.com

This print for sale on Etsy:

Introducing HONEY! Bringing awareness about adult literacy. Oh and she is a dog!


W stands for WOW. Please read this blog post, written by an MD, on the NY Times website. I literally said OMG when I read it.



My husband and I recently decided he needs to be wearing some sort of medic alert jewelry. He told me he would be the least annoyed with a dog tag necklace. Here is the one I found on Etsy. I think anyone who suffers from a medical issue like seizures, or diabetes or such should wear something like this. But how much more important for someone who can't speak the language. If they are taken to an ER, they show their bracelet, the team automatically knows they suffer from seizures and are on this medicine for them.


Understanding prescriptions and medicine labels is a huge part of health literacy. It became very clear how big an issue, after the tornadoes in Joplin.


Good News! NJ Health Literacy Coalition now has a website! I will be adding it to my "My Favorites Internet Trips" page. Check it out!

Children as Literacy Partners

On a completely non-tutoring note, I changed my blog colors to make them more Spring like. I love Spring, it is my second favorite season. Fall is my first, but of course there are some wonderful things about Spring that you can not get in any other season. At least not in the North East.

As you can see from the picture of me above, I have always loved Spring! When Spring is here, I feel so peppy and ready to work.

I am hoping my student starts feeling that way also. Lately she has really lacked motivation and she seems to be in a funk.


Back to business: Last week I ended up bringing my youngest daughter to our tutoring session. I had to pick her up early from the sitter because the sitter had an emergency. I didn't want to cancel my session with D, because we had missed the week before. So I said to myself, I am going to bring Ally with me. She is three and LOVES books, so I immediately decided this week, D would read to Ally during our session.

Of course, D was late, again. But I didn't say anything negative to her about it. I am always positive with her, which is not easy because she is a generally pessimistic person.

When she walked in she saw Ally right away and smiled big. She seems to really like children, and Ally is cute and sweet and easy to like so there was an instant attraction.

I told D she would be reading to Ally and she got nervous. I reassured her that Ally is only three and has no expectations about how well or not well she can read, so she relaxed.

I actually took a video of her reading to Ally. I will post it at the end. It is hard to hear her, but hopefully you can understand.

The book Ally picked was a rhyming book about a rabbit family. In the beginning she stumbled over many of the longer words, and I had to correct many of the words for her, but by the end of the book D was reading more fluently. It just confirms for me that with more practice she will be able to read fairly well.

The hard part is getting her to practice at home when she is not being pushed. She really has a hard time pushing herself.

I know some libraries use dogs to help young struggling readers. They have dog volunteers come in and the children just sit and read to them. The theory being that the children can relax and just read, there is no pressure because dogs do not judge. Well neither do three year olds. Ally was an easy audience for D because there was no pressure, no judgement, she could just read.

I wish I could bring Ally to more of our sessions. It would be very difficult logistically. I know D has some nephews that live with her and her family. I am thinking about donating some of my kids' books to her and having her, as an assignment, read to them each week. I am going to bring it up to her this week, I will let you know how that goes.

The picture above is of my two oldest girls. Maddie the 10 year old is a great reader and will often read to her sisters, if they can convince her. Children make great literacy partners!

Now here is the video, I edited it to make it shorter. Enjoy!