My daughter just finished an academic rights of passage.  She took the SATs.  Or – as I call them – Sad (but necessary) Academic Trauma Test.  Actually, she took the PSAT once, six practice SATs, and then two “the real things.”  Why so many times you ask?  Well, she never practiced free throws and she’s never had to shoot during clutch times.  “It’s like shooting free throws – it isn’t about your IQ, it’s a skill.”  I said so many times that even I got sick of hearing this.  I can’t really blame her when she growled at me, rolled her eyes, ran to her room, and shut her door in an attempt to block my incessant jabbering about what a game all this was.

I find it uncomfortably odd the the tests were originally termed the Scholastic APTITUDE Test.  The APTITUDE was changed to ASSESSMENT in 1990.  Even more unsettling to me is the background of the originator of the SAT.  The SAT has its roots with a psychologist at Princeton University, Carl Brigham – the leader of the committee that created the original SAT.  In his book, A Study of American Intelligence proclaimed the superiority and inferiority of the various races.  Surprise, Surprise!  Analyzing the data from the Army tests, Brigham came to the conclusion that native born Americans had the highest intelligence out of the groups tested.

The SATs have built an impressive industry.  “SAT practice” (without the quotes) and you get 24,600,000 hits!

Congratulations to those of you who breezed through these tests.  What does that tell us about you?  That you are good at the SAT skills?  Or you truly are better prepared for the workplace and hence should get into a better college?  Most likely a bit of both.  Or maybe neither.  I recall my own tortured time taking them.

But…WHAT IF…way before kids took the SATs – say back in pre-K, they started accumulating Experience Points?  Very similar to the scores they are familiar with playing video games and as they reached more advanced levels, they earned titles and trophies and acclaim for their mastery?  What if all the other kids new of their domain expertise and sought them out to help them learn whatever it is they have mastered – whether that be interpreting the meaning of poetry or the ability to make sense out of Calculus?

Your turn.  Try an original question from 1926 SAT test:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/where/1926.html

First off, Happy 4^th of July! This is a very special day for America. I thank all the troops – past and present – who have allowed our great country to remain the land of the free.  And for the most part coffee drinkers instead of all that tea the British would have us drink

It is also a day where my favorite foods are cooked and baked. Hamburgers, hot dogs….and….and….APPLE PIE!

Reading to get an Early Reader’s Just Desserts

If you have an early reader, why not have a fun reading experience with your child by baking an Apple Pie? It is a great opportunity for your early reader to experience a really fun aspect of reading – you get to make AND THEN EAT desserts. Seems to me there is a lot of intrinsic motivation in making desserts. I bet your child will try very hard to pronounce the words, understand what they are reading (with your help of course and not the help we have in our Itza games when you are not around!)…because of the high value the reward of eating the delicious Apple Pie THAT THEY MADE has.

So grab your favorite Apple Pie recipe and get your early reader engaged in reading so that they may get their just desserts!

For those of you that do not have a favorite Apple Pie recipe, I have included one that I like from the CookingLight.com web site:

Apple Pie

The slurry (a mixture of flour and water that’s whisked together) is the secret to keeping the low-fat crust tender.

Yield: 10 servings (serving size: 1 wedge)

Crust:

2 cups all-purpose flour, divided

6 tablespoons ice water

1 teaspoon cider vinegar

2 tablespoons powdered sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

7 tablespoons vegetable shortening

Filling:

8 cups thinly sliced peeled Braeburn apples (about 8 medium)

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

2/3 cup sugar

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon salt

Remaining ingredients:

Cooking spray

1 large egg white, lightly beaten

1 tablespoon sugar

Preheat oven to 450°.

To prepare crust, lightly spoon 2 cups flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine 1/2 cup flour, ice water, and vinegar, stirring with a whisk until well blended to form a slurry. Combine remaining 1 1/2 cups flour, powdered sugar, and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a large bowl; cut in shortening with a pastry blender or 2 knives until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add slurry; toss with a fork until flour mixture is moist.

Divide dough in half. Gently press each half into a 4-inch circle on 2 sheets of overlapping heavy-duty plastic wrap; cover with 2 additional sheets of overlapping plastic wrap. Roll 1 dough half, still covered, into a 12-inch circle. Roll other dough half, still covered, into an 11-inch circle. Chill dough 10 minutes or until plastic wrap can be easily removed.

To prepare filling, combine the apples and lemon juice in a large bowl. Combine 2/3 cup sugar, 3 tablespoons flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, and 1/8 teaspoon salt in a small bowl. Sprinkle sugar mixture over apples; toss well to coat.

Remove top 2 sheets of plastic wrap from 12-inch dough circle; fit dough, plastic wrap side up, into a 9-inch deep-dish pie plate coated with cooking spray, allowing dough to extend over edge. Remove remaining plastic wrap. Spoon filling into dough; brush edges of dough lightly with water.

Remove top 2 sheets of plastic wrap from 11-inch dough circle; place, plastic wrap side up, overfilling. Remove remaining plastic wrap. Press edges of dough together. Fold edges under, and flute. Cut 4 (1-inch) slits into top of pastry using a sharp knife. Brush top and edges of pie with egg white; sprinkle with 1 tablespoon sugar.

Place pie on a baking sheet; bake at 450° for 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350° (do not remove pie from oven), and bake an additional 40 minutes or until golden. Cool on a wire rack.

CALORIES 293 (29% from fat); FAT 9.6g (sat 2.4g,mono 4g,poly 2.5g); IRON 1.4mg; CHOLESTEROL 0.0mg; CALCIUM 10mg; CARBOHYDRATE 50.1g; SODIUM 153mg; PROTEIN 3.3g; FIBER 2.5g

Cooking Light, JULY 2002

Here’s a reading activity for you and your child to enjoy.  We start a Sketchy Adventure for the two of you.  What ending do you two imagine?

Sketchy’s Adventure #2

One day, Sketchy went to a parade but could not see above the crowd.

So she drew an elephant to sit on,

which worked very well,  until…

the elephant saw a mouse and began to panic.

Sketchy did not want anyone to get hurt by the elephant’s feet.

So she quickly drew the elephant some wings,

which worked very well, until…

it was time to come down.

The elephant, who had never flown before, did not know how to fly down.

So they flew on and on until they came to the top of a mountain,

where they could land.

The mountain was covered in snow,  which hurt the elephant’s feet.

So Sketchy drew a giant sled,

which worked very well,

until…
The rest is up to your imagination!  I hope you share what you come up with!

Dr. Diana Sharp served as the reading consultant for ItzaBitza and ItzaZoo. Her website is www.dianasharp.com.

Unlike the Las Vegas slogan, what happens in first grade doesn’t stay in first grade.

Reading in First Grade Matters!

A first grader who is frustrated by reading and ends the year with reading failure has an 88%  chance of being a poor reader at the end of fourth grade (Juel, 1988, http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=buy.optionToBuy&id=1989-17189-001&CFID=3005197&CFTOKEN=31484648).

Reading failure in first grade matters – a lot. And researchers at the University of Maryland are helping us to understand just how deep the effects on reading motivation could be four years later.

No Motivation to Read at Home? You Might Have a Low Achieving Reader

In a study published last year (Guthrie, Coddington, & Wigfield, 2009, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2786079/?tool=pubmed), researchers interviewed 245 fifth grade students about their reading motivation. They used questions like:

How often do you think, “I don’t want to read this”?

Do you read as little as possible?

Can you figure out hard words when reading?

Can you recognize words easily when you read?

Do you like it when books make you think?

Do you enjoy reading interesting books even if they are hard?

Do you try to get out of reading books for school?

They also looked at children’s scores on several different types of reading skill tests. And they found that the reading scores could best be predicted by looking at the amount of positive attitudes children had about reading and the amount of negative, or “undermining” attitudes children had developed about reading and about themselves as readers. The lowest achieving readers saw little reason to enjoy reading at home, so they never chose to do it when given a choice. They had low levels of “positive, intrinsic motivation.”

But there was more: these children also actively avoided reading, even in school where they didn’t have the freedom to choose other activities. They had high levels of “negative, undermining motivation.”

There is NO Quick Fix to Reading Problems

That’s why it’s not so simple to “fix” reading problems as children get older. You can’t just give children practice on the skills they need and then find books about things they’re interested in and think that everything is going to be OK. These children likely have developed “undermining” attitudes and habits of avoiding reading that need to be addressed or they’ll continue to avoid reading – often by “faking” reading – and never get the amount of reading practice they need. With luck, future research will help us better understand how to turn that kind of avoidance around.

Early Success in Reading is Critical

For now, the message is clear: it’s really important to keep children from developing those avoidance attitudes in the first place. Let’s give them as many experiences of being successful in reading – and enjoying reading – as we can. And especially if you see your early reader start to actively avoid books, don’t give up: try the kind of failure-proof support and fun that the Itza reading games offer to nip those undermining attitudes in the bud.

Dr. Diana Sharp served as the reading consultant for ItzaBitza and ItzaZoo. Her website is www.dianasharp.com.

Dear Dr. Sharp:

My son’s first grade teacher has been teaching phonics, and he can sound-out words. But he’s very reluctant to go the next step and read sentences, saying it’s “too hard.” I get the easiest books I can find at the library for our reading time, but he thinks they’re boring, and he keeps asking to go back to our “regular” books – the ones where I read to him. What should I do?

Congratulation!  Keep Reading to your Child

The first thing is to congratulate yourself for getting your son off to a great start. He loves  being read to, and that’s terrific! Give yourself a gold star.

Next, be glad that he knows how to sound-out words using phonics. Research shows that good readers look carefully at all the letters in a word and match them to sounds, while poor readers tend to look just at the first letter – or first and last letter of a word – and “guess” the word. Give your son’s teacher a gold star.

Reading Sentences is HARD

But the biggest gold star goes to you for recognizing that “Houston, we have a problem.” Knowing how to sound-out words is just the beginning, and it’s super-important that your son get over his reluctance to read. Why? Because the best thing a child can do to become a good reader is — read! Not do worksheets, not play word games, but read.

And your son is completely right – there’s a big difference between reading a single word and reading sentences. It’s hard work, and he’s perfectly sensible to expect a payoff for it. Unfortunately, he doesn’t think those easy-reader books provide that payoff. Some kids love them, and that’s great – those books will be their pathway into reading from the word “go” (or sometimes the words “Go dog Go”).

But other kids need a different first path: one with a different payoff that convinces them the work is worth it. Good teachers understand this, and so do researchers – well, some of them. A big-deal research report came out in 2000, by the National Reading Panel. http://www.nichd.nih.gov/publications/nrp/report.cfm

Getting Kids to Want to Read

It spent a great many pages on the benefits of phonics – and I agree with the value of phonics skill. But buried in the back of the report was this sentence, which I wish had gotten as much press as the phonics part:

The teacher’s job is to create or allow situations where children want to read and are willing to work hard at it.

BINGO! This is the missing piece for too many readers! They never see enough payoff, so they just read the minimum time with the minimum effort they can get away with, and that’s not enough.

OK, now to your question – what exactly should you, the parent, do at this point? Keep in mind my advice in an earlier blog entry about using children’s interests to increase the payoff for easy books. But also:

Think outside the book

What kinds of short, easy sentences could entice your son into reading? It’s OK to be   sneaky here. Try the little trick of Treasure Hunt clues. Think of things your son wants – and hide  them. When he comes home from school, say “Guess what! I made your favorite chocolate-chip cookies! But you have to find your snack, and here’s your clue.” Then hand him a message with a very simple sentence like “It is on a bed.” Help him sound out any word he needs help with. (Word of warning from experience: Make sure you don’t have a chocoholic dog in the house who might find the snack first.)

Use clues like these often, repeat words often, make the whole thing fun, and gradually expand the length of clues and difficulty of the words.

At the same time:

Think inside the book

As you’re reading those “regular” read-aloud books that your son loves, keep an eye out for simple phrases and sentences that he should be able to read with just a tiny bit of help, especially if these phrases or sentences occur at exciting moments in the story – or, for non-fiction, next to really cool pictures. Be sensitive to just how often you can ask him to do this work and still have your reading time be something he loves. Maybe it’s just once at first. Gradually expand as you go.

Think inside the game

And try ItzaBitza or ItzaZoo. It’s a dastardly sneaky way to entice children into the hard work of reading, because it’s just so darn fun. It gradually expands what it asks kids to read, and it always makes it easy to get help. It’s another pathway into reading that’s outside the book. And it might be just what your son needs to get over his aversion to sentences, build confidence, and be a better reader, so you can help him get inside books he truly loves.

Dr. Diana Sharp served as the reading consultant for ItzaBitza. Her website is www.dianasharp.com.

Dear Dr. Sharp:

In your last posting, you described your #1 piece of advice for preschool parents who want their kids to love reading. What’s your #2 suggestion?

My next suggestion is: “Do the opposite of Advice #1.”

OK, let me explain. In my last posting, I talked about using children’s sparks of interest in the world as the starting point for connecting them to books:

“If a child gets interested in a bug on the porch, or a puppy next door, or drawing rockets in ItzaBitza, say things like ‘That is SO COOL! We have GOT to get some books about (bugs/puppies/rockets)!’ “

But you can also make this world-and-books connection by starting at the opposite point: books. Don’t just pick out books for your children based on their interests. Mix it up! Grab a random bagful of books at the library and see what you get. If you see your child show a spark of interest in something in the book: bring it to life. Go out into the world and see/do/smell/taste what you read about together.

There is something inherently powerful about seeing something from a page – or screen – become real. Look at how enchanted children become when they see that miracle happen with their drawings on ItzaBitza or ItzaZoo. Carry that same enchantment into your children’s relationship with books, even before they learn to read on their own.

The year before my daughter went to kindergarten, I started reading her the E.B. White novel, Trumpet of the Swan. I chose it because it was a book I had loved. (Never assume there is only one “right” way to choose a book!) Part of the adventure takes place in the Boston Public Garden, where they have boats shaped like swans. By coincidence, while we were reading the book, my cousin invited my daughter to be the flower girl at his wedding – in Boston.

“Oh!” I said to my daughter. “We have GOT to ride the swan boats! Just like in the book!”

And we did. What we read about in the book became real in the world, in our lives. It was a lovely thing…

…unlike the book-world connection proposed by my daughter a short time later. We were reading a book about unusual foods that people eat. Including insects. There was even an Internet link to recipes.

“Oh!” my daughter said. “We have GOT to make chocolate chip cricket cookies! Just like in the book!”

This was not the kind of sweet follow-up to the swan boat adventure that I had imagined. But she was so excited. I called a friend of mine who was always up for unusual entertainment options for her preschool twin boys, and always quick to recognize the potential for a good story. She jumped – like a cricket – at the idea. (Everyone needs a friend like that.)

The next day we were at the pet store, buying live crickets. The cashier smiled at my daughter. “And what kind of pet are you feeding with these, dear?” My daughter happily explained the crickets’ purpose, while I pretended to search for something in my purse.

We read additional information on the Internet about how to prepare the dry-roasted crickets before adding them to the cookie batter. Apparently crickets develop a nasty taste if they die before being roasted, so you have to put them in the fridge until they are in a kind of stupor. Then you place the zombie crickets on a cookie sheet and – feeling like the witch in Hansel and Gretel – pop them in the oven.

It’s very macabre. The children were utterly delighted with the entire process. The cookies had a slightly nutty flavor. The worst part for me was having a roasted cricket leg get stuck between my teeth.

It’s all for a good cause, I kept telling myself. Later that year when my daughter went to kindergarten, she shared the experience one day at circle time. I heard that the other children were fascinated. “I told them we got the idea from a book!” my daughter said.

Reading can matter to your children, especially if you sometimes bring books to life. What could make a trip to the library more exciting than knowing it just might lead to a real life adventure?

How much did experiences like these help my daughter – now 13 – love books? I can’t answer that. I do know she loves them, and when I ask her what she remembers about being a flower girl in Boston, she says, “Not much. Except the swan boats.”

Now, if you want a cricket cookie recipe, here’s one from the Iowa State University Entomology Club:

http://www.ent.iastate.edu/misc/insectsasfood/chirpie.html

Or you could ask Rachel Ray.

Boom-di-yada, boom-di-yada!