Is Your Reader Stuck in a Rut? Getting Past Potter....

Admit it. It's the Christmas season, and you're craving Love Actually, the new Christmas classic. Or maybe you're still on It's a Wonderful Life? I think I got stuck on a 72 hour cycle of two alternating versions of Miracle of 34th Street while wrapping presents. I just kept tuning it at different points on AMC. 

It's mental comfort food, right? It's a common phenomenon, and the networks love it.
 
And yet... when our eight year old gets stuck on three months of Ms. Frizzle and The Magic Schoolbus or the quasi-endearing but irritating Junie B. Jones series... we get to the point when we want to pry them out of their peanut butter and jelly coated fingers. 

Then their lips tighten. Their eyes glower. And with a fierce shake of their heads they dig their heels in and all our plans for sharing Little House on the Prairie die away. These tattered books, held together with rubber bands and paperclips are THEIR BOOKS. And nobody is taking away their best friends. They know these characters. They know Arnie, and Susie, and Junie, and relate to them. No other book could POSSIBLY be as predictable and as satisfying.

In a way, they're correct. The first books you fall in love with are your first true literary loves. They have their failings, true, and they often don't stand up well to later scrutiny. I remember Nancy Drew books, with their horrid cardboard characters (Bess and George, oy), and the drippy Ned Nickerson. But the story arc was consistent; you could depend on Nancy to get into terrible trouble and to get out of it again. She was rarely, if ever, rescued by some man waving a high powered weapon; she generally got herself and others out of problems on her own. I loved that about her. I tried to ignore Drip Boy.

Kids in elementary school especially read and re-read books that are safe and easy; these books feel broken in. They are jeans that fit perfectly and don't require you to look out for rivets or things that don't fit quite right. Kids can pick them up and settle in immediately. They don't have to think too much or puzzle out words. There's no need for using context clues, or activating any prior knowledge, or any need for those annoying reading strategies the teacher's always going on about. It's just...right there!

But what if your child is a little stuck? He's read all of the books in the series... and is now re-reading them. For perhaps the third time. You sense a bit of boredom creeping in, although he denies it. He's not really reading them at this point; it's more like he's hoarding them. Then - after he's actually read all the available books in the series and not before- it's reasonable to suggest moving on.

But to do this, you must control your variables. What I mean is - change genres only. Do NOT make the books harder; if anything suggest books that are even easier than the books he was reading.  
You want this new genre to be a success, so you don't want your child to struggle with this new, unfamiliar genre.
 
But if you think your kid, boy or girl, who has devoured all the Harry Potter or CS Lewis books, might really enjoy a book about a kid who plays sports, remember that books like this are a good fit for kids who PLAY sports. Mike Lupica and Matt Christopher write books about kids who play basketball and baseball for town teams and travel teams, and they write about the other things that have an impact on those kids' lives, such as jealousy, missing parents, immigration problems, injuries, and so on. So if your child plays sports, that would be a good next step.

Nonfiction is, too, another way to go. If your child is not an athlete, but your family enjoys watching sports together, consider finding some sports biographies. With the Superbowl coming up in January this can be a fun area. Sports Illustrated for Kids is a good magazine, especially for reluctant readers. One trick is to leave such items in the bathroom that the kids use. It will get read...eventually. 

My last post contained lists of Newbery and Caldecott Award winning books, so consider going to that post for some ideas. But your child should also ask his friends what they're reading. They may well have some good ideas, and your child is more likely to stick with it if a friend is reading it. Positive peer pressure can work wonders here.

Ok, it's sneaky, but it works.

So, books as mental comfort food. Think back to the last time you were going through a hard time. You probably called friends. Maybe you listened to music that made you feel a little better. I re-read some Jane Austen that was reliable. I could rely on Elizabeth Bennet to make the same boneheaded moves that I've made (ok, not the SAME but you get the idea) in my time, and yet we both bounce back up like corks on the waves. You can help your children understand that there are so wonderful writers out there waiting to help them get a better grasp on the world, and help them learn to laugh and nod and realize that, yes, it's going to be all right. There are books out there to shake them up, and settle them back down. You, as their parent, and I, as their tutor, will help them find the good stuff.

Consider following this blog! My tutoring company is Lesemann Learning. My website is www.amylesemann.com I tutor students between first grade and 12th, for assistance with reading, writing, and SAT/ACT prep, both remedial and accelerated instruction. Email me at amy.lesemann@gmail.com or Lesemann.Learning@gmail.com

Wallowing in Words!

Dear parents, learners, and everyone else,
From the time we're, well, conceived, possibly, we're bathed in words. Maybe they're a distant rumble from outside Mom's abdominal wall, but we do register them, in one form or another. As we grow, our parents read to us (if we're lucky), from all sorts of books. In Maine, one frazzled mom confessed she could only find time to read to her kids when the two of them were in the tub. "I sit on the lid of the toilet," she said, "and we do a book a night. Or maybe a chapter of The Magic Schoolbus. It was the only way I could fit it in." She looked embarrassed.

I wanted to hug her. What an impressive set of priorities! So the books get a bit damp? Ms. Frizzle and the kids on the Magic Schoolbus go all over the universe and her kids learn about astronomy or the ancient pyramids while soaping themselves and splashing around. But what's more important is that they learn right now how important reading is to their mom. They also learn how good reading sounds - those words just wash right over them, warm and smooth and bouncy. Funny dialog, a clever adventure, twists and turns. Those kids have no idea how lucky they were.

Many parents stop reading to their kids as soon as their kids can read to themselves. "But they need to practice," parents figure. "I don't want to get in the way." You're not in the way. When you give a character a squeaky voice, when you pause to add a little drama, when reading to your eleven year old (who initially rolled his eyes at the idea of a "bedtime story"), you're showing that a book, a story in words, can be as fun as a movie, as a radio play once was.

So about that wallowing. There are many other ways to help your kids do that hippo in the mud thing. My mother used to play opposites in the car with us. I have no idea where she came up with this, but it's cutting edge educational thinking in 2012. (Way to go, Mom...you, with very little college education!) The idea is you give your kid a word, and she comes up with the opposite. Easy, right? Ok, so the opposite of right is wrong. Or left. Aha! Get it? And that's the fun of it. There are often more than one answers. Chat about it. This is not about keeping score. This is about the absolute COOLNESS of words.  Opposite of up? Ok, down. Opposite of hard? soft. Or.... easy! (By the way, the "official" term for opposites is "antonym" - thus the name of the online opposites game.)

Got you again.

Now, for you middle schoolers at heart in the audience. Opposite of castle?

Hmm. Hut? Motel 6? Tent? Pawn to King's Knight-3?

See how it works?  Make them explain how they're reasoning.It's important to see that there is more than one answer (sorry, chess geeks, if I wrote that wrong....but you get the idea). This kind of multi-directional thinking is key to problem solving in the real world. Can you take a problem and turn it around, like a Rubic's cube, and examine it from different angles? Are you capable of thinking of something in more than one way? Many people are not able to do this, initially, but it is a skill that can be taught.

Teaching them to play opposites, and encouraging them to discuss their answers, instead of competing against each other, is a wonderful way to foster more complex thinking strategies.

Ready for more difficult questions?

What's the opposite of a black hole?

That's high school level or smart cookie middle school I'm thinking maybe nebula, the birth of a star, since a black hole is usually the death of a star.

Analogies is another game that encourages kids to think about different relationships between two items that may initially seem very different. But start with the easy ones. This game is better for traffic jams, or sitting around the dinner table, when you can think a bit harder.  (The link goes to an online analogy game for kids, and teaches kids the different types of analogies.)

Start with the obvious analogies: Sister is to brother as aunt is to...uncle, obviously. And bird is to egg as dog is to puppy.

You can either give them the first half of the rest of it (dog is to ____) or let them come up with the entire second analogy themselves. Decide how challenging you want to make it.

The analogies game can become quite complex. You can use such relationships as part to whole (bird is to flock as bee is to swarm), or synonyms (nice is to kind as evil is to bad). The responder must figure out the relationship between the first two, in order to come up with the second half. (The link goes to an online analogy game for kids, and teaches kids the different types of analogies.)

Last but definitely not least is an introduction to poetry, and there will be much more on this later. Children's poetry has come so far since we forty somethings were kids; Judith Viorst, Shel Silverstein, and Jack Prelutsky are wonderful examples of fun, silly poets. Judith Viorst is my favorite, because she tends to be a bit more serious than the others, and often comments on some of the harder things in a child's life, although she maintains a light touch. She will write about the trials of being messy, and wishing that hamsters had longer life expectancies.

Many parents, though, are not aware of the great poetry that's available for older kids, and that's a shame. There is amazing sports poetry out there - who knew? Here's a triathlete's poem site! and poetry about the difficulty of being a young teen. Be advised that the poetry about middle school ages does include topics such as parents dying, feeling suicidal (although not committing suicide), and of course unrequited love. If these books did not include these feelings, no teen would take them seriously. You cannot bowdlerize poetry for teens - it just cannot be done honestly. (Poem Junction has poetry about just about everything... )

There are also websites to encourage the young writer; this includes examples of types of poems, and then a kind of template to encourage a student to try his hand at writing one of that type of poem. Be advised you CANNOT save the poem there - but you can COPY it to Word, or print it out. Here's that "write your own poem" site -  A particularly juicy site: the Poetry Teacher's page, with poems about very nearly every subject. Funny, not funny, and everything in the middle.  For middle schoolers there are a few collections that I have used, and the students quietly love them, and keep the copies I give them. I find them taped in lockers, in notebooks, and extra copies give to friends. One is Swimming Upstream by Kristine O'Connell George; her website is nicely little interactive.  Another writer, Mel Glenn, pairs his middle and high school poetry with photos of students that seem to fit his words. The people in the poems are not literally the subjects of the poems, but it does help readers visualize and understand how the speaker is feeling, and most of the poems are in the first person ("I"). Some of the poems are dialogs - the left poem is one person's perspective, and the right poem is another's perspective about the same event. I love his books Class Dismissed and My Friend Has this Problem, Mr. Candler. I've used the poems as jumping off points for discussions, especially when something's happening in the news, or in the school, that we need to discuss. Parents, and kids, can really use these poems to open up that can of worms that has been sitting on the shelf for awhile, or to finally address the elephant that's lurking in the room...the boyfriend Mom and Dad aren't crazy about, the fears a teen has about going away to school. Sharing these poems can lead to sharing of another sort.

And if you figure you'll get the eye rolling treatment...leave the book in the main bathroom. Works like a charm. They come out reading it and walk into the counter. When you ask them what they're reading they'll probably say nothing. But you'll know. And soon, maybe not now, you can address that elephant.

Elephants should have their own apartments, anyway.

Questions? Comments? Something you'd like me to write about? I'm a reading specialist and I have my own tutoring company - Lesemann Learning. See my website at www.amylesemann.com
 There are many learning websites there. I tutor 1st through 12th grade, remedial and accelerated "bored in school" kids, as well as test prep. Some kids need a writing instruction; I do that, too! Face to face, or by Skype. Write to me below in the comments section or by email at amy.lesemann@gmail.com.

For the Reluctant Reader in Your Life....

Dear Parents, learners, and other readers,
Many people have asked me, as a reading specialist, "Why won't this kid read? We're a whole FAMILY of readers, except for that one. I gave him/her my FAVORITE BOOK IN THE WHOLE WORLD - a classic. But nope. Kid dropped it like a hot potato. What gives?"

I had this conversation with @Natalie Wind, the other day, courtesy of my sister Mara's facebook page. She had given her sister a wonderful Judy Blume book, but was unsure if she'd read even three chapters.

Some folks don't like fiction, and we teachers have done wrong by many of them by insisting over the years that fiction was the only way to go. It's what we assigned as whole class reading books; we used fiction in small groups. We were relentless. We have seen the light.

And it's a well-written light coming from multiple genres. That is to say - give the reader what he or she craves.Don't put them down because they reject "the classics".  Some folks think "made up stuff" is a waste of their time. For kids who have no time to waste on "dumb stuff like dragons", try biographies and information books about history and the history of science. Who made what when?  That's what many kids want to know.

If you're looking to lure a reluctant reader into fiction, look more closely at her interests in real life. If she's a sports geek, try Matt Christopher (2nd through 4th grades), Mike Lupica (middle through high school), or Robert Lipsyte (upper middle through high school). These writers capture the sweat and drama of sports from motocross to soccer to basketball. Lupica and Lipsyte write for major New York newspapers, and Lipsyte has won many writing awards, and has also written about being bullied as a fat kid in middle school, and surviving several bouts of cancer. He has written about about his time as a cancer patient for both children and adults.  Mike Lupica has written a series of books as well, and they range in topics from being the short kid on the basketball team,  to the stresses of a travel team life. 

Matt Christopher's books are appropriately less complex, and are often a reader's first leap into "real" chapter books. They are good shared read aloud books for second through fourth graders, as long as you take the time to discuss the plot line. Who is who? Why is that person upset? What do you THINK will happen next... and then...were you right? Helping your reader live into the book will help him enjoy it, and want to read more. When you share that burden of reading as he makes the move into more sophisticated books, he can hear how fluent reading sounds, and learn how his reading should sound.

But there are so many genres besides just books! Consider giving a gift of Sports Illustrated for Kids, Time for Kids, or NatGeo (National Geographics for Kids).  Cricket Magazine has a score of magazines for different ages and interests. At this site, you canorder the magazine that fits your learner's interests and age, AND you can order an app to go with it! So when you're stuck in the doctor's office and you've forgotten a book or toy...hand over the Nook, or the Ipad, and nobody gets ...hurt? bored? You get the idea. Your child can show you the stories, and you can read them aloud together. There are puzzles, contests, comics, and all sorts of options.

And you can still order now, Dec. 20, at the last minute for Christmas.

Questions? Comments? Send them along! Amy.Lesemann@gmail.com 

Through Lesemann Learning I can work with your learner by Skype, anywhere in the country, if your child needs help with reading, writing, or test prep... Go to my website, and look at the learners' pages down the left side. Every learner has his or her own page.   Lesemann Learning  Learner better. Learn happier.

Dear parents, learners, and everyone else...
At this time of year there are countless versions of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol on TV. Some are good; I would rate Patrick Stewart's as the best, and occasionally most terrifying. Some are hideous ("Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol", anyone?). 

But there's nothing like reading A Christmas Carol itself, preferably aloud.  Charles Dickens was down on his luck and living in fear of debtor's prison when  he wrote the small novel. He needed a Christmas miracle.His father had been thrown into prison, along with the entire family, when they owed money to various people. The irony is pretty ugly. You are thrown into prison, where you cannot go to work, until you can pay off the money you owe. Your only hope is that friends and relations will raise the money for you. When Dickens' family was imprisoned, he was 12 and he was taken out of school and sent to work in a blacking factory. At the factory he made polish for shoes and stoves. This experience hung over his life, and his novels reflected the struggles of his own family.

Did he succeed with his little book? Well, he almost did himself in from the start! He insisted on gold pages at the beginning and end of the book, heavy, embossed paper, and a beautiful, expensive printing job...and then insisted on selling it for next to nothing.

His first printing made almost nothing.

And he never did make a fortune off of the story itself. But there are other ways to succeed, and the public and the book critics loved A Christmas Carol. Dickens, who had been in a slump, was suddenly back on top. All 6,000 copies sold out by Christmas Eve. The book was re-printed 24 times!

There was to be no debtor's prison for Dickens.  Plays, movies, and countless reprintings later, one copy was sold in 1875 for $3,493 to a Dickens collector. The Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City later purchased it, but they will not say how much they paid for it.

 Here's where you can find A Christmas Carol online, for free, and  you can either print it out or read it from your screen.

You'll find words there that you don't know; you can look them up quickly in www.dictionary.com .

While reading, or when you have a minute, it's fun to explore London as it was in Dickens' time. Try the interactive London map.

And here's the Dickens Game! Will you survive London, England in this time period? It's not pretty. Be strong but be kind. And enter the world of Victorian England.

Enjoy! And have a Happy Christmas! Let me know what you think...email me at amy.lesemann@gmail.com  Below is George C. Scott in the first part of A Christmas Carol, from Youtube.com

The New Lesemann Learning Blog!

This will be a place where learners and their families can find out what is going on with other students, what I'm learning about online, and in books I'm reading about teaching, web groups I've joined to learn more about tutoring, and so on.

I will also be posting great sites for learning games and lists of book students will love.

What else should I post? Tell me what you'd like to know about! How about I post YOUR favorite books, and your reviews? Send me your poems, your stories, and I'll post them on the blog. You'll become... blogfamous!

First... Books for Christmas presents! Newbery (yes, just one r) award winners are good bets for fourth or fifth grade and up. They can be a, um, strong cup of coffee, though, so parents should look at what they are about. A good "kids" book is a good book, period. And so they deal with death, sadness, loss, as well as sometimes being really, really funny. A great book is not specific to a particular age - which is why a parent doesn't mind re-reading a well-written kid's book eight bzillion times over, nearly as much as she minds re-reading a horrible Disney ripoff eight bzillion times.

Here's a good Newbery List.   Only the top winners are linked, for the years 2000 and up. The Honor books are just listed. You'll have to search them out on Google if you want to know what they're about.

Here is a website that's all about getting guys to read! It's put together by Jon Sciezska, the guy who wrote The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, and former 3rd grade teacher. It's the GUYS READ website.

The Caldecott Honor is given to the year's best picture books. Great picture books are fun for everyone, not just kids who aren't reading yet. They're fun for older kids to read to younger kids. They're great bedtime books. And they're good for reading after dinner, parent to middle schoolers who roll their eyes but really enjoy it (though they will NOT admit it).

Stay tuned... check back daily! I'll be posting games, such as the Dickens Victorian London Game, and the video that goes with it. Do you enjoy A Christmas Carol? Learn about Charles Dickens, and why he wrote the book, and how it changed his life.