Getting Boys to Read... Anything!

I recently posted Ten CC's of Books for Boys over at my Teach with Picture Books blog. In that cleverly titled post I feature ten topics which will get boys reading: Caped Crusaders, Curious Critters, Corporeal Crud, etc. (See my cleverness?).

One of my Twitter friends, Kim Sivick (@ksivick), checked out that post and shared a link to a New York Times Op Ed piece by Nicholas Kristof. In the Boys Have Fallen Behind, Kristof points out that

...the Center on Education Policy, an independent research organization, confirms that boys have fallen behind in reading in every single state. It found, for example, that in elementary schools, about 79 percent of girls could read at a level deemed “proficient,” compared with 72 percent of boys. Similar gaps were found in middle school and high school. In every state, in each of the three school levels, girls did better on average than boys.

The Center's report is no shock to me; what shocks me is that the gap isn't larger!

Kristof also cites Richard Whitmire, whose book Why Boys Fail offers additional sad stats, who says, “The world has gotten more verbal. Boys haven’t.”

Kristof then confirms what I asserted in my Ten CC's post by saying

Some educators say that one remedy may be to encourage lowbrow, adventure or even gross-out books that disproportionately appeal to boys. (I confess that I was a huge fan of the Hardy Boys, and then used them to entice my own kids into becoming avid readers as well.)

Indeed, the more books make parents flinch, the more they seem to suck boys in. A Web site, guysread.com, offers useful lists of books to coax boys into reading, and they are helpfully sorted into categories like “ghosts,” “boxers, wrestlers, ultimate fighters,” and “at least one explosion.”

All in all, it seems that Kristof, like me, supports any and every avenue possible to get boys reading. Over time, of course, boys' tastes will mature and they'll move on to more refined topics.

That's all for now. I have to see what's new over at People of Walmart and Awkward Family Photos.

The Secret Life of Scientists

Scientists are old, boring guys who discovered stuff. Some were women. Most of them are dead now, men and women both.

If you had asked me in high school what I knew about scientists, that would pretty much have summed it up. Science simply wasn't made real to me, and scientists were just those black and white images that appeared occasionally in textbook margins.

If only my teacher had a resource like the PBS/Nova web-exclusive series The Secret Life of Scientists. If you want a good idea of what the site has to offer, check out mechanical engineer Nate Ball. This guy is truly a rock star of science, and just one of the many real-life, three-dimensional scientists featured there. (Be sure to click on the video of how Nate helped develop the Ascender, an amazing self-powered device which is now in use by armed forces and rescue personnel).

In my Teach with Picture Books blog I often praise biographies for their ability to provide real-life role models for children. This site does the same thing for the older, more tech-savvy generation. Definitely worth integrating into your existing science or career curriculum.

PBS Activity Packs

PBS, that trusted acronym that brought us Sesame Street, continues to provide cutting edge learning tools with their embeddable activity packs. If you're a teacher with your own web site, web page, blog, or other media platform, read on!

What's an activity pack?

According to the site, "An activity pack is a set of educational resources focused on a theme and packaged in a widget-format that you can embed in your own class or social media web page. Each pack includes links to PBS websites and a set of activities by grade level."

In other words, it's a stand-alone app that you can easily install to your site which provides both links and activities for reading and language arts, social studies, science and technology, health and fitness, and the arts. You can either paste the embed code directly into your site, or simply choose a push-button adding feature if your site social media site button is pictured on the array.

While at PBS also check out their new Media Infusion Blog. Cool stuff!

Save the Words!

In a recent post (There's a Word for That) I discussed how English language is a dynamic language, with new additions daily.

It's only natural, then, as new words enter the language, old words will fade away, right? Not if Save the Words can help it!

Save the Words is a neat site dedicated to saving rare and lesser-known words from extinction.

The site offers Word-a-Day for those who love language, the option to Adopt-a-Word, and suggestions to Spread the Word (such as the tattoo idea pictured here).

Students will enjoy using words that sound made-up, even though they're 100% authentic. Most words here can also be parsed according to Greek and Latin roots, as well as common prefixes and suffixes (see the related post It's All Greek to Me).

Give the site a try! It's a terrific tool to encourage explorations into language!

Rock and Roll Science

Apparently I am the last teacher on Earth to learn of They Might Be Giants, a really cool band whose song "Science is Real" is featured below. Lots of other great, more topic-related videos by that same group can be found on YouTube. (If you double-click the video below, it will open in the YouTube page, and additional vids by this group will appear to the right).

Good Enough!

Good enough! I usually cringe at that expression, since it's typically an excuse for substandard work. But in the case of Alternative To, it's high praise!

Alternative To is a site where you can enter the name of any popular desktop program or mobile app, and the site search will return a list of free applications which are close alternatives.

For example, my daughter recently informed me that a trial version of Microsoft Office had expired on her computer and she wanted me to purchase the whole program. It is, after all, a great program (my attempt to avoid being sued).

Enter Alternative To. I typed Microsoft Word into the Search bar and was instantly presented with over a dozen alternatives. I instantly recognized the name Open Office. While Google Docs (another listed alternative) contains a lot of cool features and functionality, my daughter simply needed a platform that looked and acted like Word.

A little more exploration at the Open Office site (Alternative To provides direct downloads as well as links to source sites) revealed that in addition to word processing, the Open Office program also contained applications for presentations, spreadsheets, graphics, and more.

A one click download, a simple installation, and we were all set! Not only does Open Office look and act like Word, but it can actually save my daughter's work in Word formats.

So before you spend another penny of your hard earned money, I recommend you visit Alternative To. You might just find the perfect alternative for personal or school use.

Chess Rumble: Life Lessons from Chess

The English language is peppered with chess idioms: stalemate (a position of impasse), gambit (a risky tactic, often involving a sacrifice), checkmate (a measured response, leaving your opponent with no way out), rank and file (literally, the rows and columns on a chess board; often used to name the "lesser players" in an organization), pawns in a game (bit players), and endgame (the final phase of an operation or story). Movies, television shows, theater, literature, and even video games widely use chess as a metaphor for human interactions. In The Lord Of The Rings, for example, Gandalf describes the coming war in chess terms:

The board is set, and the pieces are moving [...] But the Enemy has the move, and he is about to open his full game. And pawns are likely to see as much of it as any, Peregrin son of Paladin, soldier of Gondor. Sharpen your blade!
(source: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChessMotifs)

Chess as a metaphor for critical thinking and decision making is the central theme of Chess Rumble, written by G. Neri and illustrated by Jesse Joshua Watson. From the book jacket: "Inspired by inner-city school chess enrichment programs, Chess Rumble explores the ways this strategic game empowers young people with the skills they need to anticipate and calculate their moves through life." Told in free verse, this book has a rich, authentic voice and a truly plausible story line.

Here G. Neri and Jesse Joshua Watson reflect upon their respective roles as author and illustrator, and the phenomenon that is chess:




As an educator once faced with designing an academic curriculum for inner-city youth at a summer camp, I chose chess as a center piece for that program (center piece is also a chess derived idiom). Sixth and seventh graders who otherwise had difficulty following directions and sitting still would immerse themselves for hours in tabletop warfare.

In one memorable game, a student made a reckless attack which cost him a rook (a valuable piece, outranked only by the Queen). My counselor responded to the student's dismay by saying, "You made a move from anger. When I took your piece, your first thought was to get revenge. But if you had looked a move or two ahead, you would have seen a bettter way." That exchange was just one of many that came from our games. (In later years I even taught a chess course at church called The King is the Thing, which taught life lessons through chess).

Chess Rumble is a fabulous book for your classroom library or as a read-aloud. The authentic voice and plentiful black and white illustrations make it a stand out for the middle school group.