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10 to Try: Black History Month

Read Aloud teamed up with the YWCA Charleston Racial Justice Program to bring you ten children’s books to try for Black History Month. Whether you’re a classroom reader, a teacher, or a parent, these books are a great way to celebrate the rich culture of America and the lasting impact of leaders of color! We encourage you to not only use titles like this in honor of Black History Month, but to incorporate texts with diverse characters into your reading all twelve months of the year!

A huge thanks to the YWCA for pulling this compelling list of titles together.


If a Bus Could Talk: The Story of Rosa Parks by Faith Ringgold (Grades K -5)

Marcie, a young black girl on her way to school, gets picked up by a strange bus. She later finds out this is the famous “Rosa Parks bus”. This bus ride with Marcie will leave listeners interested and engaged in the rich history behind civil rights leader, Rosa Parks.


Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterfly (Grades PreK – 3)

Hidden Figures shares the story of four African American, female mathematicians working at NASA. While facing racial and gender bias, they prevailed by participating in some of NASA’s greatest achievements. This book features a local legend Katherine Goble Johnson, a native of West Virginia and a West Virginia State University alumna.


Be A King: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Dream and You by Carole Boston Weatherford (Grades PreK – 3)

This dual narrative shares moments of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life, while also sharing the strong principles of equality he stood by. Students, performing a Dr. King inspired school project, learn about the adversity Dr. King faced and his hope for an equal society. This book encourages children to enact the principles of Dr. King’s legacy into their own lives.


Firebird by Misty Copeland (Grades PreK – 3)

Firebird showcases the story of a young dancer who is questioning her own ability. Misty Copeland, the first African American woman to become a principal dancer at the American Ballet Theatre, uplifts this young protagonist by sharing her experiences.


What Color is My World: The Lost History of African American Inventors by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Raymond Obstfeld (Grades 3-7)

This book uplifts the stories of little-known African American inventors. What Color is My World honors the ingenuity and determination shown by these inventors to make our world a better place.


Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom by Carole Boston Weatherford (Grades 1-3)

Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom is a poetic tribute to the strength and devotion of Harriet Tubman. Through prayerful dialogue, Harriet Tubman shows determination and perseverance to free her people.


Sulwe by Lupita Nyong’o (Grades 1-3)

Sulwe is a heartwarming story that inspires children to see their own unique beauty. Sulwe has trouble accepting her darker skin, but she’s reminded that her skin is just as beautiful and valuable as lighter skin tones.


I Love My Hair by Natasha Anastasia Tarpley (Grades K and Up)

I Love My Hair is a story about a African American girl celebrating her beautiful natural hair. This imaginative book highlights the significance and versatility of African American Hair.


Mixed Me by Taye Diggs (Grades 1-3)

The main character, Mike, learns to embrace and celebrate his mixed racial heritage. This delightful, textured, fun-filled picture book takes on the questions children of mixed races face with humor and offers a strong, positive message of self-love. 


Same Difference by Calida Garcia Rawles (Grades 4-6)

This charming, upbeat books begs to be read aloud! Two cousins find themselves at odds over their physical appearance. This book reminds us that you can find beauty in any shade of brown and that we are much more alike after all.


Message from the YWCA Charleston Racial Justice Program

We hope that you love these books as much as we do! Thank you to Read Aloud West Virginia for this amazing opportunity. We would also like to thank our amazing Racial Justice Committee Members for suggesting such good reads. We hope that these books share important pieces of Black History and highlight the beauty of the black experience.

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A Doctor’s Advice on Reading

Parents want to do what’s best for their children, but there is confusion about what is best. Dr. John S. Hutton recommends:

  • Read picture books for at least 15 minutes a day with your child. Longer is fine.
  • Start shortly after birth. With infants, reading is not about learning the ABCs or even understanding the story. It is about establishing the routine and starting a dialogue.
  • Keep children away from phones, tablets and other screens, including TV, before age 2. The one exception is video chatting with loved ones who are far away, but not until 18 months.
  • Phone and tablet apps are easy to carry and to use, and marketers promise learning benefits. But those apps have not been studied and shown to work. “Reading, by contrast, has been well studied,” Hutton said. “We know it works, but it is just kind of oldfashioned.”
  • For toddlers, limit screen time to an hour a day.
  • Keep reading with children even after they start school and after they can read themselves.
  • Don’t use screens to pacify children. Children are learning to handle their emotions and control their reactions. “They need practice, and if they’re constantly soothed with devices, they are short-circuiting this process and their ability to handle their own stuff. They don’t learn to regulate their behavior,” Hutton said.
  • Keep screens out of the bedroom, where they tend to lead to later bedtimes and disrupt sleep, homework and reading. “That’s one of worst places for screens to be. Anything that disrupts sleep causes all kinds of trouble.”
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How Accelerated Reader turned my daughter off books

By Lynn Kessler

I’ve been reading to my daughter, who is now 12, since she was born. She always loved it. At 6 months old, she would sit for long stretches on my lap while we read Go, Dog. Go! and Bear Snores On. Her first full sentence, at 18 months, was “Read Dog Go.” I knew then she was destined to be a great reader.

Through preschool and kindergarten, her reading skills and scores were always above expectations for her age. We snuggled up and read together every night before bed.

When she started first grade and began using the Accelerated Reader (AR) program, she did well on the tests, scored a lot of points, and looked forward to taking tests and receiving rewards and recognition for her achievements.

I recall a conversation around this time with a friend in education who was not a fan of AR. The program, she said, was detrimental to the intrinsic motivation that is critical to develop lifelong, avid readers.

“I don’t know,” I responded. “She seems very motivated.”

Cut to the beginning of summer vacation. My 7-year-old is bored.

“Why don’t you read a book?” I suggest.

Then, the reply I never expected: “No way! School is out. I don’t have to read!”

After I collected my jaw and my heart from the floor, I called my AR-averse friend to say, “You were right.”

Accelerated Reader, commonly known as AR, is a computer-based program that seeks to encourage kids to read more independently, improve student comprehension and reading skills, and provide a tool for teachers to evaluate student progress and adjust instruction and interventions accordingly.

Renaissance, the for-profit company that owns and sells AR to schools, says on its website:

“Every student can become their most amazing self and discover a lifelong love of reading with the guidance of an expert teacher. Designed based on years of careful research to help teachers introduce students to the magic of books and reading, Accelerated Reader products are the most widely used K–12 reading practice programs.”

I was not able to find pricing information on the Renaissance website, but my general research found that it can cost anywhere from $2,000 to $10,000 a year to implement and maintain the AR program, depending on the size of the school and the package selected.

Renaissance offers plenty of research to support their product, and it seems that the company has attempted to improve upon areas that have received critical feedback. However, there are many literacy experts who feel the program undermines intrinsic motivation and the development of a genuine love of reading.

A report from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES) found only two studies that met the agency’s research design standards and evaluated those results. The Institute concluded: “Accelerated Reader was found to have mixed effects on comprehension and no discernible effects on reading fluency for beginning readers.”

The research above focused on measurable academic outcomes — changes for which students can be tested. But what about motivation?

Studies examining intrinsic and extrinsic motivation have shown that rewarding children for a certain behavior can produce immediate results, but then backfire. After an initial period of improvement, students begin to perceive the activity they are completing for a reward as a chore. It is something to be done so they can move on to something they enjoy.

That research is parallel with my personal experience with Accelerated Reader. I believe that this program — now a part of students’ grade calculations in our elementary and middle school — inflicted significant damage upon the years of success I had in encouraging a love of reading in my daughter.

That does not mean, of course, that this will be the case for every child. My younger daughter, a voracious reader, excelled in the AR program until third grade when she struggled to get enough points. That challenge has continued in fourth grade. It concerns me that the goals set for students by the program, and the requirements for grading, become more difficult just as children reach the critical age in third to fourth grade that is widely acknowledged in education as a make-or-break point for reading skills.

I was a Read Aloud volunteer in my 9-yearold daughter’s class. We finished reading The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate. The kids thoroughly enjoyed it. They were engaged in the story and always excited to recap each week, discuss the book, and read more. They were gratified by the ending. After considerable sorrow and hard times for Ivan and his friends, the kids were delighted that the characters found peace and happiness.

Then they reached for their tablets and asked if they could take the AR test.


Lynn Kessler, former Read Aloud staffer, is a reader, writer, mother of two and a Read Aloud volunteer in Kanawha County.

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James Patterson: ‘It’s not the school’s job to get our kids reading’

To prepare for James Patterson’s appearance at the West Virginia Book Festival in October, Kanawha Circuit Judge Carrie Webster printed a letter the bestselling author had written to his son Jack back in 2007. It was a loving letter at Christmas, urging his son to read for the joy of it, not just to get into Harvard. Patterson promised to give his son at least one book every Christmas and several for the summer.

Webster served as host and moderator of the author Q&A, and confided to him that she wished her own daughter read more.

“It’s your moms’ job,” he said to the judge’s daughter and to the crowd. “She says you are smart, but you could read more.

“It really is,” he said. “It’s not the school’s job to get our kids reading. It’s our job. It’s on the parents, the grandparents, aunts and uncles, all that stuff.”

Patterson didn’t read much as a kid. He thinks it is because his parents and the nuns at his school did not put enticing books in his hands. He discovered reading as a young adult working night shifts at a mental hospital.

Then years later his own son was uninspired by books.

“I said, ‘Jack, you have to read over the summer.’

He said, ‘Do I have to?’

I said, ‘Yeah, unless you want to live in the garage.’”

But the key thing is, he said, kids must have books they really enjoy.

“We went to the local library and got about a dozen books, and by the end of the summer he had read 12 books. It’s going to vary with your kids. He went from being not very interested to going to the library in his school.”

A reader told Patterson that her 7-year-old came running in after a visit to his school library saying: “Nana! Nana! Look what I found. It’s James Patterson!”

“He didn’t know you were a children’s book author,” she said.

Many people don’t know it, he said. One reason he writes for kids: to give them the kind of page-turners that keep them coming back.

“As I say, I think the important thing is if you are a mom or dad or whatever, it really is your job. We’re the ones who are responsible. It’s great to teach your kid how to ride a bike and how to throw a ball, but if they’re not at least competent readers, we’re putting them behind the eight-ball.

Patterson’s son Jack, now 21, is a reader and has since collaborated with his dad on a picture book, Penguins of America.

“Look. We have rules in the house. You can’t come in and track mud on the rug. You’ve got to show up to meals. It just needs to be a rule,” Patterson said.

Afterward, Webster thought back. “I loved reading as a child — Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden,” she said. As an adult, she enjoyed Patterson’s Alex Cross series, though thanks to her phone, she doesn’t read like she used to.

Her daughter loved reading in the early grades (and was a big Accelerated Reader fan). “Now she reads only when she has to,” Webster said.

Around the time of Patterson’s appearance, her daughter asked if they could read together like they used to.

“We need to do that,” Webster said. “I’m going to take her to the bookstore.”

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Are you raising a reader?

The more time we spend reading to the babies and children in our lives, the better their young brains organize themselves, forming networks essential to learning to read around age 6.

Dr. John Hutton can see it in their brain scans.

The more we pacify babies and children with screens, even supposedly educational apps, the more screen time short circuits essential connections that the brain is primed to develop in the first years of life.

He can see that, too.

A pediatrician at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and “spokes doctor” for the national campaign, Read Aloud 15 Minutes, Hutton presented some of his findings to doctors and educators at Marshall University in October at an event sponsored by Marshall’s June Harless Center for Rural Educational Research and Development.

“Why does this matter to pediatricians?” he asked. “Reading we know is a major public health concern. It is considered a social determinant of health.”

First, some background

Human brains are born ready to do certain things, such as see and speak.

“But out of the box, there’s not an actual network in the brain that automatically knows how to read. We have to make it,” Hutton said.

Human beings do this by using brain networks that evolved for other things. So, as parents talk and sing with babies, their language networks are stimulated.

“This tends to happen in a predictable sequence,” Hutton said. As parents show picture books to babies and toddlers, other brain networks are engaged – vision, attention and executive function, for example.

“All these areas need to be stimulated during early childhood. The more you stimulate them, the more they form networks to work together. The more you stimulate them, the stronger they get.

“If all that goes well, that’s how this emerging literacy process is fueled,” he said.

Long before the ABCs

Emerging literacy is a collection of skills – how to read, background knowledge, and attitude, Hutton said.

The how-to includes how a book works.

Turning pages. We read from left to right. Children learn these details years before it is time to learn ABCs or to sound out words.

As children listen to books, look at pictures and converse with others, they build up a store of words and ideas. Later, when it is time to “learn to read,” children draw on those words, matching them to words they are learning to decode in school.

Children who hear and learn fewer words during their first four years do not read as easily as children with more words.

And then there is attitude.

“This is the underrated part,” Hutton said. “Do I like to read? Did I grow up in a home that valued reading? Is reading fun? Or is reading more of a chore?

“That’s one of the challenges we have, to really reinforce the idea that reading is something that should be seen as a fun and nurturing and positive thing, not just something that is all about how you are going to do on the test later.”

The brain, on books

Earlier surveys counting books and reading time, for example, showed that children who spent more time with books from an early age had better readings skills and scores. But could you observe a physiological difference?

Hutton and colleagues did MRI scans on healthy preschoolers. They scanned brains while children listened to stories, and again when they heard random noises.

“What we found was there was a difference,” he said. In children who had been read to more, there was more activity, including in the part of the brain associated with vision. Doctors think that is the child’s imagination.

“It’s pretty amazing,” he said. “Kids who have more practice, more experience with books and reading, have more ability to activate the part of the brain that’s involved in imagining what’s going on in the story and then understanding what it means.”

“This is pretty exciting. It’s really the first study to show reading early on makes a difference in how their brains function,” he said.

Quality counts

So, the number and frequency of books is important. What about quality of the experience?

Hutton’s team watched parents read to children and scored the range of their behaviors. Some read in a monotone. Some made sound effects and involved children. One even looked at a phone while reading.

They scanned children’s brains and found that children of parents who read more interactively, where children had turns at talking about the story, had more activity in both the back and front of the brain. These areas are associated with imagination, chronology, expressive language, and understanding emotions.

Parents, teachers and doctors have long observed that kids who interact more with stories have stronger language skills. Hutton’s research corroborates that observation.

“More interactive reading experience leads to stronger activation in the part of the brain that’s involved in knowing how to talk,” he said. “And also integrating what they hear in the story with how they feel about it.

“It really is a pretty powerful parallel with what behavioral research has shown in terms of the benefits of interactive reading.”

Lost in a good book

Was there a difference in the brains of children who were visibly engrossed in a book compared to those who weren’t?

Yes.

Kids who showed greater interest in the story had more activation in the cerebellum, a rear section associated with helping the whole brain learn new things.

“We call it a storytime turbocharger for learning,” Hutton said. Children who were most interested were probably more likely to be learning something. He could see their brains doing it.

“We should be coaching families to get kids involved in the story, sharing the process, to talk about it, to ask questions,” he said.

Goldilocks effect

Then they looked at brains receiving stories in different formats – audio only, an animated story app, and a traditional picture book. They evaluated how much the different parts of the brain were working together.

Small children who listened to audio only without pictures had much less network activity. There were no pictures to help with unfamiliar words.

“Too cold,” Hutton said.

When children looked at the same story animated, there was a lot of activity associated with visual processing, but little else.

“All the sudden the networks stopped talking to each other. “When animation happens, there is a 37 percent drop-off in cooperation between these networks. The imagination part is less needed, so there is more focus on the visual processing part.

“When you animate a story, it short circuits the child’s imagination.”

“Too hot,” Hutton said.

The old-fashioned picture book?

“When you put pictures with the audio, there is greater cooperation among parts of brain,” he said.

“It was just right.”

But wait, there’s more

“Books are also a way to learn about feelings,” Hutton said.

“It’s a way to really exchange emotions with a child, from promoting early experiences of nurturing and feeling cared for to relating to what characters in books are feeling.

“This is how kids learn a lot of these feelings. They are able to put themselves into the minds of other characters.”

Social and emotional maturity is also a predictor of school success. Learning to think about the world from another’s point of view helps.

“All those things involve practice, and they start early,” Hutton said.

“That’s another real benefit of reading with a child. You’re not only building their vocabulary but also their ability to process their feelings and to put themselves in other people’s shoes. I think that’s another benefit that may be underrecognized.”

NAEP scores

Shortly after Hutton’s visit, the National Assessment of Educational Progress released its 2019 scores. West Virginia fourth graders dropped four points in reading to 213 on the 500-point scale. The national average is 240. No one was surprised.

Read Aloud West Virginia sees three main reasons. Poverty interferes with children’s learning and exacerbates other problems, and West Virginia children are disproportionately poor. Opioid addiction has killed parents and destroyed families, further harming children and their ability to learn. And then there is screen time.

In another study, Hutton said, most parents were reading to their infants frequently, and 34 percent read once or twice a week.

But at two months, 68 percent of babies were watching TV regularly, and TV time turned into hours, not minutes.

Read Aloud 15 Minutes surveyed parents and found that reading to children every day dropped between 2018 and 2016, with the biggest drops among kids ages 6 to 8.

“I would argue that kids at this age still need to be read to,” Hutton said. “Even if they can read, the content of the book leads to lots of questions, lots of things the parent can really talk to them about.”

West Virginia teachers have been telling Read Aloud that they are seeing more language delays among children entering school in recent years.

The state Department of Education reports 2,122 children had an identified developmental delay in 2018, up 9 percent from 1,946 children in 2013.

‘Neurons that fire together wire together.’

Then in November, Dr. Hutton’s latest research appeared in the journal JAMAPediatrics.

He studied preschoolers who were exposed to more digital media than the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends. Those guidelines include no digital media before age 2 except for video chatting and no more than an hour of high-quality children’s programming a day for ages 2 to 5.

This time, scans showed brains exposed to more screen time were associated with less of the desirable fat coating of nerve cell connectors – a process called myelinization. Myelin is what makes the brain’s white matter white. It insulates nerve cells and makes them more efficient at signalling each other, like the insulation on electrical wires.

There is an old adage in neuroscience, Dr. Hutton said: “Neurons that fire together wire together.”

“The more these areas are encouraged to talk to one another, whether language areas or executive function, the more that coating of the wires is stimulated,” Dr. Hutton told the New York Times. “The amount of myelin around a nerve fiber is directly related to how often it’s stimulated, how often it’s used.”

Possibly, he said, kids with more screen time have less myelinization of networks important for language and literacy because the screens crowd out other things that are shown to stimulate healthy brain development.

Back in Huntington, Hutton told doctors and educators that the number of books, the frequency, the quality of reading and the format are all important to children’s brain development.

“I would interpret this as saying you need books, you need to read them pretty often, read them interactively, and as boring as possible in terms of the format. Boring being straight up picture books.

“I really would argue there’s not a better invention. We haven’t invented a better mousetrap at that age if we want to stimulate brain networks to develop in the most strong and functional way.”

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‘Find the right book’ at the WV Book Festival, Oct. 4-5

Looking for your next favorite book? The West Virginia Book Festival’s got you covered. With a used book sale, writing workshops, and a line-up of authors including James Patterson, Salina Yoon, Orson Scott Card, and more, this gathering of readers and writers will have something for the whole family.

Orson Scott Card
James Patterson

Read Aloud is particularly excited about the opportunity for cross-generational interest in authors. Headliner James Patterson, for example, a well-known adult author, also has several successful young adult (YA) series, including Maximum Ride, Middle School, and I Funny. Orson Scott Card, author of the popular sci-fi novel, Ender’s Game, also has a YA series called Pathfinder. This is a great opportunity for parents to foster and/or bolster a love of reading with their children through the shared experience of meeting or discovering an author they both enjoy.

James Patterson claims to have set a mission with his writing career that we heartily agree with – “to prove that there is no such thing as a person who ‘doesn’t like to read,’ only people who haven’t found the right book.” We hope to see this message resonate through all aspects of this year’s book festival and awaken the reader in everyone.

Join us on October 4-5 at the Charleston Coliseum & Convention Center to celebrate our favorite thing – books!

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… And the pay is great

As a (mostly) retired public servant, I am eager to resume my reading aloud with primary students this school year.

To say that the process is ‘rewarding’ is an understatement. I am often paid in hugs. While the classroom teachers with whom I have worked value my presence every week, it is the students of grades three, four and five who show their genuine appreciation.

A typical Thursday morning involves driving to the school and schlepping the three-ring binders of my prepared-and-rehearsed readings for the day. In the classroom, I place my binder(s) on a stand-up table or lectern and wait for enough silence to commence. I have never sat for a reading period. Call it the performer (aka ‘ham’) in me, if you will, but I believe it is impossible to read with engagement — and gestures — while seated. Call me ‘old school’ if you like.

Over the last few years, I have become an invited member of my county chapter of Read Aloud West Virginia, a vetted-and-authentic organization of volunteer readers….

Recollecting on my own experience as a primary student, now these many years ago, it was the teachers or community members who read aloud with my class and me that always fondly come to mind. What they did had impact. Learn about the affirming studies that show student improvement in classrooms in which a spoken reader participates in learning. And I can vouch that I am, without fail, warmly welcomed in every classroom.

Although what I read is likely not as important as how I engage students in a quality story, the expression of interest in their collective faces says it all. Afterward, it is not unusual for students to steal a hug on my way out of the classroom, often on the way to the next classroom in my schedule.

Yeah, I also have the gratification of teaching in an after-school program three afternoons a week, but it is ordinarily the weekly reading sessions that make it oh-so-easy for me to get up on a Thursday morning.

Don’t say, “I don’t have time” or “I’m too old” for reading aloud. I am 70 and work with a dozen organizations and community interests. Do the students — and yourself — a favor this school year. Read aloud.

Robert Johnson, a reader, blogger, musician, music promoter/event producer, community activist and educational advocate, is a Read Aloud volunteer and chapter board member in Nicholas County. This is adapted from a blog post published at medium.com.

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Make or break time

By Dawn Miller

After third grade, more than 85 percent of the school curriculum is taught by reading, says Maggie Luma, coordinator of the West Virginia Campaign for Grade Level Reading.

“Third-grade reading is one of the highest predictors of high school graduation,” Luma told about 50 Read Aloud West Virginia volunteers at Read Aloud’s sixth annual summit at Canaan Valley State Park in July. “Eighty-eight percent of our high school dropouts were struggling readers in the third grade.”

The Campaign for Grade Level Reading’s goal is to increase the percentage of children reading proficiently by the end of third grade by 5 percentage points each year. Literacy specialists offer evidence-based help to teachers, schools and communities.

Here’s another data point: vocabulary development by age 3 predicts achievement by third grade, Luma said. So reading to babies from birth, singing, rhyming, talking and naming things with your toddler actually contributes to their school success later in life.

“Unfortunately, 74 percent of those students who are falling so behind in third grade are never going to catch up,” Luma said. “That doesn’t mean that by the end of third grade we forget about those students, but it means we really need to be thinking about prevention.”

“What is the solution?” Luma asked. “Maybe you could buy a reading program, right? We’re all looking for that magic bullet, the newest thing to come out of Pearson or Houghton Mifflin or wherever it is that is going to get all our kids reading. We’re going to put them on a computer, right? And get them all to be playing games so that they know how to read. I think if that were the case, we’d all be reading, right?

Students need a more intentional approach, she said. “Instead of buying a new program, instead of just praying a little bit harder, we could do what the research tells us.” We could use evidence-based literacy practices:

  • Deliver explicit instruction. That means telling students what they’re learning in words they understand. “Make the learning goal visible,” she said. “Yes, we need to develop a love for reading, but they’re not going to develop that love if they can’t decode.”
  • Increase practice turns and feedback. “Let’s get the students talking more. They need increased discourse,” she said. “They need to be talking about what they’re learning.” They also need a teacher on hand to give immediate feedback: “That’s wrong. This is what’s right. Let’s try it again.”
  • Design instruction for students’ needs, but we really need to know where the students are before we do that, she said.
  • Work collaboratively. “We know we have one major goal, and that’s get our kids reading by the third grade. But there are so many ways that we can get there. Our job at the Campaign for Grade Level Reading is to support teachers, to support schools and to support communities with a roadmap. Here’s what we’ve learned. Here’s what the research says, and here’s what we are going to provide supports in, so you can take what you need according to your specific data and apply it to your reading instruction.”

“I think Read Aloud West Virginia speaks to my heart because it shows children authentic reading and why they need to be readers, because it brings joy,” Luma said.

“You enjoy what you read. You learn about what you read. And I really think this needs to be our message when we are talking to students. You don’t just need to learn this to learn it. It’s because words are powerful. Words have meaning, and you can use them to change the world.

“Literacy is one of the biggest antidotes to poverty,” she said. “Literacy becomes the currency for all other learning.”

— Dawn Miller, a classroom reader in Kanawha County, is Read Aloud’s operations director.