Childrens Literacy and Reading News Roundup – 1 September

2009 September 1

Literacy Reading News RoundupThis week Jen Robinson is hosting our children’s literacy and reading news round-up. The roundups are brought to you by Jen Robinson’s Book Page and Scrub-a-Dub-Tub, a Reading Tub blog. Jen and I collected plenty of content for you about literacy and reading-related events; raising readers; literacy and reading programs and research; 21st century literacies; grants, sponsorships and donations; and other new resources. We hope you’ll find some useful information to start your reading week.

Periodically this summer, we have commented about the volume of literacy- and reading-related news we see each week. Fascinating, interesting, and encouraging news can be found in all corners of the blogosphere: from educator- and library-focused institutions; academic and publishing journal; literacy organizations; and bloggers who talk about books and reading with  kids. As we become more tuned in to what’s out there – and as newer voices join the circle – there is more to think about each week.

As Jen noted in the Roundup, we decided the start of school was the best time to launch the newly refined Literacy and Reading News roundup … and add something new. Our goal with the weekly Roundup is to offer information you might not have seen. We want the roundup to be valuable, and as Jen said, it shouldn’t take half a day to read. It is a tough balance, because what we see on Twitter might be old to one reader and new to another.

Our goal in tweaking the roundup is to make sure we stay true to its purpose: selectively highlight news and ideas about reading and literacy. Jen and I will continue to alternate our Monday morning digests between Jen Robinson’s Book Page and Scrub-a-Dub-Tub. When we started collaborating, there was not Booklights to help get out the word on Raising Readers. Now that we have this FAB resource, it’s only logical to have Jen feature that in her Literacy Lights column at Booklights. I know most of you subscribe to Booklights, but just in case … we’ll link to it in our roundups.

So what about all the other stuff that’s on Twitter, Listservs, etc.? Well, that’s where technology comes in … and the ingenious idea of Andrea Ross (Just One More Book)!

First, we have a new Literacy and Readng News Roundups blog. It will be the mostly passive repository of our between-the-roundup News. Each day, there will be one post for  each of our core categories: Raising Readers, Literacy Events, 21st Century Literacies, and Reading & Literacy News. Grants and Donations will show up in either Literacy Events or Reading News, as appropriate. If you don’t want a widget (more on that in a minute), you can subscribe to the blog itself, OR subscribe to a feed for your label of interest.

Second, I created four Del.ic.ous feeds, one for each category. As Jen and I find news of interest, we will “feed” the Del.ic.ous account so we can continue to share interesting, exciting, and noteworthy information that might not make it into the Roundup.

When you go to Literacy and Readng News, you will find a post that describes and offers the link for each widget. Del.ic.ous makes it easy to generate the code that works best for your blog, so just click “get widget” for the topic of interest and follow the easy instructions. If you don’t want the widget, click on the label of interest under “Feeds & Midweek Updates,” and you have the link to add the feed to your blog reader.

Jen and I are very excited about the growth in interest in the literacy and reading niche within the blogosphere. We want the roundup to be not only valuable, but manageable, and we think these adjustments will do that. Last but not least, we hope you can join us at KidLitCon09 (Kidlitosphere Conference) when we spend some time brainstorming about ways to build literacy bridges beyond the computer and in our communities.

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