June 2010
SummerReads™!
TextProject launches series of free downloadable books that can make a difference for students who don't have access to many books over the summer.
Recent visitors to TextProject may already know about our new SummerReads program. SummerReads provides a free downloadable collection of informational texts that are intended for third through fifth graders who fall below the proficient standard. The texts use the TExT model, which means that high-leverage words comprise the majority of words in the texts. There are currently 15 books, divided into 3 levels with 5 books each (Getting Ready for Grade 3/4/5). We plan on adding at least 6 more books over the summer.
Research on the summer slump is quite convincing, as is evidence that even a handful of accessible texts can make a difference for struggling readers. We believe that these books can make a difference for students who don’t have access to many books over the summer.
The books can be downloaded for free here! Audio recordings of the books are also available for download.
SummerReads was featured in Reading Today! Take a look at what they had to say about SummerReads.
Freddy is on Twitter!
Did you find out about SummerReads after school ended?
Twitter is the best way to find out what’s new on TextProject. We don’t send announcements by e-mail when new information has been added to TextProject but you can keep current through Twitter! Sign-up for freddyreads for Freddy’s tweets.
New Frankly Freddy
Freddy has been thinking hard about beginning reading. She began a series of blogs in June on beginning reading.
Find them at Frankly Freddy. Here are some recent blog posts:
Have the texts of beginning reading been dumbed down over the past 50 years?
No, in the 1962 version of the first-grade Scott Foreman (SF) program, in which Dick and Jane figured prominently, had a vocabulary of 323 unique words that were repeated over 120 texts. By 1983 the leap in number of unique words in grade-one texts was astronomical: from 5 new, unique words per 100 words of text. In 1993, readers encountered 25 (or more) new, unique words per 100 words of text.
Whatever Happened to Dick and Jane?
If you were 6 years old between 1930-1967 in the U.S., there is a high likelihood that this text was the first of your school career. If you were 6 years old between 1967-1988, there is a good chance that your first school text was similar in the kinds of words but without Dick and Jane.
What Exactly is a Decodable Text?
Any text written in English is decodable at some level in that the code never deviates from the alphabetic system. However, the degree to which the letter-sound correspondences within words are common or consistent can vary considerably.
Debate of the Decade!
Freddy was part of a debate at the annual conference of the National Reading Conference.
Last November Freddy took part in the culminating event at the annual meeting of the National Reading Conference—a debate. Freddy’s team was on the side that argued that there is research available that can support solid policy and practice in reading education. Watch Freddy make the closing argument that supported her team’s win! A video of the debate is available at the NRC website:
Click here to view the debate. It’s the fourth video on the list: NRC Integrative Research Review: A Debate with Ourselves about the Contributions of Literacy Research to Practice and Policy. Moderated by Dianne L. Schallert.
Stopping the Summer Slide with SummerReads™
Dr. Elfrieda H. (Freddy) Hiebert presented a webinar on the effects of summer reading.
Freddy’s recent webinar on summer reading is now available to view! (Click here!) The webinar begins with Freddy explaining why summer reading is so important and why certain kinds of reading are important. She then talks specifically about the hows and whats of Summer Reads, TextProject’s new initiative to ensure that the kids who need to read in the summer have engaging and accessible texts.
The Role of Text in Developing Fluency and Comprehension
Hosted by Pearson, publisher of QuickReads, Freddy has another new webinar geared towards QuickReads users.
In this webinar, Freddy demonstrates why automaticity remains a major challenge for many students. Freddy has coined a new term—comprehension-based silent reading rate (CBSRR)—to describe what we need to be focusing on. Attention to CBSRR is very different than the over-emphasis on oral reading that been so prominent over the last decade. In particular, Freddy focuses on the manner in which texts can facilitate or impede the development of CBSRR.