Engaging readers through book trailers in the classroom and library

Have you ever considered that difficulty finding books to read is one of the greatest reasons children may not be reading. Even for some of our avid readers, choosing books is hard.  Hey, it is for me sometimes, too! So, it just makes sense that for some of these readers, teachers and teacher-librarians should actively promote books and hear students say "Hey, I want to read that!"

Book trailers are one way to help our students access books.  Here is one trailer that my fellow student, Crystal, and I created for our summer course, EDES 501, through U of A. 

A few tips... think about the big ideas or themes when selecting images.  Find music (creative commons license, of course) that works with that theme.  Then...don't forget that  you don't want to give away the ending! This trailer was created on Movie Maker but I think next time, I'll be trying out Animoto.com

FYI, all photos were courtesy of Flickr and the music, Akili by Peppa Ska, was courtesy of Jamendo.com.

Finally, don't forget students can learn to create their own trailers, too!

Is the "glass" of urban literacy half empty in your school?

As a literacy teacher in an urban inner city school, a recent passage from my course textbook, Children's Literature in Action really got me thinking about some of the ways we view family literacy in low socioeconomic areas.

"It can be helpful to see the many literacy activities that are already occurring in family settings.  Instead of taking a deficit view of family literacy ("why aren't they reading more books?"), we can look to see what kind of literacy activities are already in place.  So often we tend to view the "glass" of urban literacy as "half empty." What kind of activities promote family literacy?  All kinds.  And if we begin where families already are, we can have a greater impact.  More reading and writing that is relevant and meaningful to both parents and children is the key." (p.6)
Vardell, S. (2008) Children's Literature in Action: A Librarian's Guide, Libraries Unlimited: United States of America.

In my lessons, I always try to make learning meaningful and relevant for my students, but I have never stopped to think about relevancy for their families. It seems so obvious now.  However, the big questions is: "What kind of literacy activities would be meaningful and relevant to our parents?"  My first thought... school or classroom newsletters? On second thought though, as a parent who frequently skims over newsletters or files them for reading later, I don't think this is the avenue.  I think we have too much irrelevant content in these letters that have made us disregard their relevance to our child.  I wonder how that came to pass.  Now how about featuring their own child's writing in newsletters?  Or what if the students themselves wrote the news for the class? What could be more meaningful to a parent than seeing their own child's work featured in the letter. Just one thought... I need to keep thinking about this one.  

If you have suggestions, I'd love to hear from you.

Library Thing

If you are on the hunt for a place to organize your reading material, discover new authors and titles, and become part of a community of like-minded book lovers, I would highly recommend LibraryThing. This social networking site makes all of these tasks easy. The website has excellent search engines that allow you to read reviews of books and receive recommendations based on your reading profile. It's free to catalog up to 200 titles.

As a staff developer, I see a lot of potential with this tool for teachers and staff developers alike. With Saskatchewan in the process of renewing all of its curriculum, this would be a fantastic avenue to collaboratively review new curriculum resources at a specific level. For example... imagine if all Grade 5 teachers formed a group and each selected one of the new resources to read/view/share with the larger community! Many hands make light work!

It's easy to sign up for your free account.If you want to locate me, I can be found at ydenomy.

Reconnecting with Technology

I started this blog with good intentions back in 2007. For some reason, I just never followed through. Over the past three years, I have learned so much about teaching, learning and leading in literacy that I can't imagine catching up now. So on with the new...

Now I'll begin a new journey... as a full time grad student in the M Ed in Teacher-Librarianship at U of A. Wish me luck!

My goal this time around is to make the learning that I am doing visible and valuable to others! Sounds great in theory. Let's see if I can do a better job this time!

Chapter 1

This blog will follow my journey as I begin a new Literacy Teacher position in my school division.