A few summers ago a friend was house-sitting for a colleague in Washington, D.C., when she got an eye-opening about just how little reading is valued in many families. The house was in a transitional neighborhood, and there were many large families on the block. She befriended a number of the children and offered to take them to the library to get some books. The kids were excited, but their grandmother was not happy. “No” she said. “Who will take them back to return the books? It’s too much trouble.” The grandmother was dependent on public transportation and didn’t want the burden of getting the books back to the library. The real loss here is the low value the family placed on reading. Books should never be a burden.

Study after study confirms that many students, especially those from low socio-economic families, experience summer learning loss. “Of even greater concern is the fact that these losses are cumulative, creating a wider gap each year between more proficient and less proficient students,” says Linda Gambrell, former president of the International Reading Association.

In her article Closing the summer reading gap: You can make a difference! Gambrell outlines some concrete ways to keep students reading over the summer. Many of her recommendations are easily accomplished with Reading A–Z’s summer reading program: Tell children about different books, get them to make reading lists, and give kids books they can keep for their own.

Authors Form Backbone of Educational Publishing

Authors plant the seeds for educational publishing companies. Every book they write inspires and invites readers. At Learning A–Z, we ask even more from our authors. We ask them to find ways to connect with children at all reading levels, create books that students want to read, and help educators teach to state standards and across curriculum areas.

Our authors do a fine job of keeping kids interested in reading and keeping teachers linked to developmentally appropriate resources.

Daily feedback from teachers indicates how well the Reading A–Z books and lesson plans work within schools' reading programs and diverse classrooms. Here is what a reading specialist in North Carolina had to say recently:

“It is so rewarding to have the students' eyes glisten as they read both fiction and nonfiction at their independent reading levels. What a thrill to witness this success. The success has carried over to improved reading test scores as well. Now we can concentrate on the students and not on the big hunt to get suitable material.”

Thank you Ms. Yoder for your words of support.

Students love the books too, and at the end of the day, it is their enthusiasm that will keep children reading for years to come. We recently received an e-mail from an 8-year-old in Pennsylvania who loves our books so much that she submitted a plot outline for her favorite series.

Who knows? The youngster may be a writer herself one day.

That level of connection with teachers and students underscores once again just how good our authors are. In a new recurring website feature, we are highlighting one of our authors—such as Alyse Sweeney— in a video interview. Alyse, who has a master’s degree in elementary education and is a licensed reading specialist has written dozens of books for us. She says, “sometimes I start with just a phrase or a detail, and like a seed, it grows into a story.”

Keep planting seeds, Alyse, telling stories that help our children grow into great readers.

The National Governors Association is looking toward measuring U.S education against top-performing education systems in countries such as Canada, Finland, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea.

Supporters of international yardsticks contend there is only so much that can be gained from comparing states to one another, according to a recent education article.

Knowing what is happening in the classrooms of top-performing countries could well give schools in the United States the tools to revamp instruction and ultimately help  increase global economic competitiveness.

A report scheduled for release in the fall of 2008 will identify best practices in other countries that could be applied in the United States. I look forward to the report and its recommendations. It is hard to find fault with using global best practices to improve the education of our children.

When I was teaching, I lived for those “Aha!” moments when students “got it.” Teachers understand how energizing, how satisfying, and unfortunately, how few and far between those moments can be. One of the things I love about differentiated instruction is how it maximizes learning so all students can experience their fair share of amazing moments of understanding.

Many teachers worry that differentiated instruction requires individualized lesson plans and adds to an already packed planning schedule. In an Education World interview, Rick Wormelli, author of “Fair Isn’t Always Equal: Assessing and Grading in the Differentiated Classroom,” says the worry is unfounded. “A big part of a differentiation is flexible grouping, but not individualized instruction—that is a bit of a myth,” he says. “No one is asking everyone to do independent programs for every single child.”

Effective grouping for differentiated instruction requires teachers to know their students well enough to put each one in an appropriate group, according to “How to Differentiate Instruction,” an excellent, step-by-step guide to incorporating differentiated instruction in the classroom. Teachers need to know students’ abilities, interests, behavior issues, and perhaps even cultural issues to group them effectively for differentiated instruction.

All the Learning A–Z resources are developed on the premise that differentiated instruction is one of the best ways to meet the needs of a diverse student population. We do the work of creating leveled books and lessons so teachers can do what they do best: Teach to those ‘Aha!’ moments.