Reading Home

April 19

In the News
$500,000 claim by dyslexic 'teachers failed to spot': http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/03/03/ndys03.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/03/03/ixhome.html
A man who says his life has been blighted by the failure of teachers to recognise his dyslexia is claiming #500,000 compensation from his local education authority.

Are Test Scores Really Rising?: http://edweek.org/ew/articles/2004/10/13/07fuller.h24.html
Achievement standards are not absolute at all, says Bruce Fuller. They are, he claims, politically negotiated.

Children in the grip of autism: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6901860/
Like all children with autism and related disorders, the 8-year-old boy from Los Angeles has trouble interacting with others and forming relationships. Learning to speak has been an enormous challenge for him and, at an age when many kids are being scolded for chatting in class, Adam sometimes has problems even recognizing the human voice.

Children's Reading Scores Stalled in Many States: http://www.asu.edu/educ/epsl/EPRU/articles/EPRU-0410-75-OWI.pdf
Children's reading scores have stalled or declined in the nation's largest states since Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, according to new data released by governors and state school chiefs.

Deaf Students Struggle With English Exams
http://www.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/10/22/a.matter.of.english.ap/index.html
Most deaf students don't grow up hearing English spoken, and thus they often have significant vocabulary gaps that prevent them for scoring well on state English tests, experts say. To combat this, the Mississippi School for the Blind and Deaf is asking state officials to allow deaf students to use a thesaurus during exams, an initiative being watched closely nationwide.

FREE Brochure Available To Help Inform Parents About Free Tutoring Under NCLB: http://www.ed.gov/parents/academic/involve/suppservices/services.pdf
Thanks to No Child Left Behind, parents are receiving more options than ever before to help their children succeed in school. Under NCLB, low-income students in schools that do not meet state standards in reading and math for three consecutive years are eligible to receive supplemental educational services such as free tutoring.

The Gift Of ADHD? - Two new books look at the upside of a disorder: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7102727/site/newsweek
Sam Grossman grew up thinking he was stupid, lazy and irresponsible—"a screw-up," as he puts it. Struggling with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), he constantly disappointed his parents and teachers alike.

A Guiding Light in Clouded World: http://www.sptimes.com/2004/10/17/Tampabay/A_guiding_light_in_cl.shtml
Barry Richard, who is nearly blind, once paid $23 for a hamburger and a beer. He intended to cover his check with a $5 bill and three ones but handed the waitress a $20 and three ones by mistake. She accepted the windfall without a peep. Here's what Richard since has learned about handling cash when you can't see.

'Hamlet' too hard? Try a comic book: http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1012/p11s01-legn.html?s=hns
Comics are winning over some teachers and horrifying others.

Latest Opera browser gets vocal: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4208751.stm
The latest version of the Web browser Opera, created by a Norwegian telecommunications company, will be the most accessible browser, according to its creators, with voice command features that will read pages aloud. Opera will also magnify text up to 10 times with colors and fonts that users will be able to select themselves. The browser does not yet work well with screen reader software, but its accessibility features appeal to those with residual vision and those who use handheld devices.

Lawsuit challenges Alaska's high school exit exam: http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/8206317.htm
Disabled children and their parents filed a federal class-action lawsuit against the Alaska Board of Education, the latest in a string of challenges to state laws requiring students to pass an exit exam to earn a high school diploma. The lawsuit charges that Alaska's exit exam discriminates against student with disabilities, making it difficult--or impossible--for them to receive a diploma. The complaint said the state has created widespread confusion by repeatedly changing its regulations for disabled students and what modifications in testing conditions they can receive.

Librarians cut despite focus on reading: http://desmoinesregister.com/news/stories/c4780927/23930974.html
"Several national studies done over the past decade show a direct link between youngsters' reading abilities and well-staffed libraries with up-to-date materials. Three studies released in 2000 showed that students in schools with well-maintained library collections and trained library staffs performed better on standardized tests, especially reading. Yet during a time when educators are working to boost students' reading skills, school leaders are slashing librarian positions across the Iowa as they look for ways to deal with tight budgets and rising insurance, utility and salary costs."

Males' learning needs ignored?: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/1101edboys01.html
An educator and author thinks that schools favor girls at the expense of boys - and that recent college enrollment figures reflect it.

National Center for Education Statistics: http://nces.ed.gov/
NCES is the primary federal entity for collecting and analyzing data that are related to education in the United States. You can easily search for public and private schools in your area and learn all about them, find college information online, and locate public libraries.

New Research Paper From Scholastic Confirms That School Libraries Are Critical To Student Achievement
Schools with Integrated Library Curriculum and Certified Media Specialists Report Higher Test Scores: http://www.educationnews.org/new-research-paper-from-scholast.htm
Scholastic Library Publishing, a leading publisher of children's print, non-fiction and online reference material for use in schools and public libraries, today released an important research foundation paper that supports the effectiveness of school libraries and their direct correlation to student achievement.

Paid on a curve: http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0330/p11s01-legn.html
Denver schoolteachers broke rank with national teachers' unions when they approved one of the nation's first compensation packages linking their pay to student performance--a concept the public may love, but teachers' unions have generally resisted. Of course the decision is not without controversy. Even some who embrace pay for performance criticize this plan for not going far enough. But there are others who predict that Denver's ability to get its teachers on board will spur other school districts nationwide to move in the same direction.

Repeat After Us - Your online library and language lab: http://www.repeatafterus.com/index.php
"Created by a high school student, RepeatAfterUs is an award-winning online library with the best collection of copyright-free English texts and scripted recordings. Our free audio clips provide an excellent resource for students and literature lovers of all ages."

Ritalin and Russian Roulette: http://www.newswithviews.com/Blumenfeld/Samuel27.htm
It is estimated that in the United States between four million and eight million children are on Ritalin, the drug being used to change the behavior of children afflicted with a disease or condition called Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) or Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD).

She fights for rights of disabled: http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2005/02/13/she_fights_for_rights_of_disabled/
Her parental instincts may have lured Martha Ziegler into the disabilities field, but her commitment to serving other parents has kept the 74-year-old active in the pursuit of education for children with special needs.

Stepping up - Colleges are providing more and more disabled students access to education: http://www.indystar.com/articles/7/205186-5967-047.html

Study of young children links TV to attention deficits: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/2486049
Young children who watch television face an increased risk of attention deficit problems by school age, a study has found, suggesting that TV might overstimulate and permanently "rewire" the developing brain. For every hour of television watched daily, two groups of children--ages 1 and 3--faced a 10 percent increased risk of having attention problems at age 7.

Technology creates level playing field: http://www.indystar.com/articles/0/205184-4650-047.html

Teen Reads.com: http://www.teenreads.com/index.asp
Includes book reviews, author features and interviews, book clubs and reading guides, and of course plenty of opportunities for teens to recommend their favorite books. Searchable.

Technology Matters: A Conversation with Bart Pisha and Skip Stahl of CAST: http://www.ld.org/newsltr/1004newsltr/1004feature1.cfm
In this interview, Dr. Pisha and Mr. Stahl discuss their work at the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST), including Thinking Reader, a new program they are developing to help teach reading to both struggling and mainstream students.

Test shows work needed: http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/living/education/9915492.htm?1c
More than three-quarters of California high school juniors tested last spring could not read or write well enough for college-level work. Students fared much better in math; 55 percent of the juniors met the college math standard.

Too Many Cooks Running Our Schools: http://www.educationnews.org/too-many-cooks-running-our-schoo.htm
The curriculum in our schools has been spoiled by the fact that there are too many cooks in the kitchen. The academic agenda of the public school system is as much determined by what is politically incorrect to discuss in the schools, as it is by the basic assumptions about the academic skills necessary to survive in our society.

Understanding Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/13152.html
Because many symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may be present in normal children at an early age, it should only be diagnosed after a thorough professional evaluation, according to child and adolescent psychiatrist Laurence Greenhill, M.D.

Web inaccessibility 'creates net underclass': http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/20/accessibility_underclass/

"What's so Special About Special Ed?: http://www.educationnews.org/what-so-special-about-special.ed.htm
"Instead of a national curriculum for education, what is really needed is an individual curriculum for every child." Charles Handy
For as long as he can remember, Cal has been called lazy. He's now in 10th grade and spends a lot of time in his room doing everything but his homework.

White House heralds gains for assistive technologies: http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStoryts.cfm?ArticleID=4954
"A new White House report-- "New Freedom Initiative: The 2004 Progress Report" (NFI)--touts President Bush's progress toward removing barriers to assistive technologies and giving people with disabilities full access to all aspects of American life, including education, housing, jobs, and transportation."

Technology in the Reading Classroom
"Educational Technology: Media for Inquiry, Communication, Construction, and Expression": http://www.lis.uiuc.edu/~chip/pubs/taxonomy/
The abstract for the article reads:
We describe a new way of classifying uses of educational technologies, based on a four-part division suggested years ago by John Dewey: inquiry, communication, construction, and expression. This taxonomy is compared to previous taxonomies of educational technologies, and is found to cover a wider range of uses, including many of the cutting-edge uses of educational technologies. We have tested the utility of this taxonomy by using it to classify a set of "advanced applications" of educational technologies supported by the National Science Foundation, and we use the taxonomy to point to new potential uses of technologies to support learning.

Essential Skills Software: http://www.essentialskills.net/

eXpLOrE, LeArN, and gRoW @ RightinClass: http://www.rightinclass.com/
Carolyn Hinshaw is a classroom teacher who has a clear vision as to how a teacher moves through the stages of literally no technology in the classroom to a technology rich environment. She has lived the changes and can clearly articulate them in terms that
anyone can understand. She was the NCCE (Northwest Council for Computer Education) technology teacher of the year (2000) and has been recognized by the State of Washington as an exemplary teacher.

In May 2004, David Warlick wrote an article for Technology & Learning Magazine called "Textbooks of the Future": http://techlearning.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=20300250
In that article he explored how textbooks might change, as a concept, as they become increasingly digital and networked.He is now in the process of converting a book he wrote 1998, last revised in 2002 (3rd ed), Raw Materials for the Mind, as a model for some of these ideas. The book is often used as a text in graduate instructional technology classes. He has converted the book to HTML and placed it on his Web site as an IDA-Book (Interactive, Dynamic, & Associative).
The current URL is: http://landmark-project.com/rmfm/ebook/
Because of the way it is set up, readers can annotate most paragraphs in the book. These annotations are shared with other readers. Readers can add URLs to Web site listings. A number of discussion boards will be planted in the book
The acknowledgments, foreword, and introduction are available for free on the website now so you can get an idea of what it looks like.

Speegle: http://speegle.co.uk/
Speegle is a search engine that not only displays results as text but also reads the results aloud in male or female voices.

This site began in March 1998 and was created by Janet Luch. 
Email to studyplans@yahoo.com.