Literacy

"Young people are pretty savvy about marketing...They don't consider something 'bad' or 'annoying' just because it's marketing, the way many of us in the previous generation did."

Do you know STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics)? From hosting “parties” with traditional building blocks to using science kits with young children, ideas for STEAM programming in libraries were shared at a recent panel at the ALA (American Library Association) annual conference.

My high school readers (and most other serious readers I know) are obsessed with Good Reads. And if they’re not, they are connected on either LibraryThing or Shelfari. Socially connected readers seek and trust the recommendations and lists of their networks; reviews purchasing and borrowing opportunities, as well as the attractive shelf metaphors, fun quotes, [...]

These posters' apparently value-free aspect is perhaps what's most worth exploring with young people...

The American Library Association (ALA) this week launched a preview version of Digital Learn, a free online resource for librarians working with digital literacy learners. The new hub, which will be fully available June 30, follows recommendations released this month from ALA’s Digital Literacy Task Force.

The nominees for the 2013 Teens’ Top Ten have just been announced by the Young Adult Library Services Association. Kids Read Now combats summer slide with a summer reading program focusing on children in first through third grades. Channel One News is expanding its digital distribution so that its education content can be accessed inside and outside the classroom. Chronicle Books celebrates its 25 years in children's publishing with a tween and teen book giveaway, with entries due July 3. A school librarian at Hitchin Boys’ School in the UK has discovered a poem incorrectly attributed to William Blake.

Media literacy discussion points covering novel-to-film adaptations, marketing, genre, screen violence, and more.

Back in May I shared Elissa Malespina’s media-rich, interactive Choices Summer Reading list.  She created it for her South Orange (NJ) Middle School readers using Apple’s iBooks Authors. She hosts the list on the Bookry platform and it feels very much like those cool magazine apps we flip through on our tablets. Randie Groden just shared an alternate [...]

Only one in three parents of children ages eight and under reads stories to their kids each night, according to a new survey by the literacy organization Reading is Fundamental (RIF) and Macy’s.