National Literacy Month

September is National Literacy Month:
Time to get involved
Make sure that members of your community
Learn to Read !

Questia’s Top 10 Literacy Books for National Literacy Month

Literacy in the New Media Age by Gunther Kress - Routledge

The Power of the Written Word: The Role of Literacy in the History of Western Civilization by Alfred Burns - Peter Lang

The Browser's Ecstasy: A Meditation on Reading
by Geoffrey O'Brien - Counterpoint

African American Literacies by Elaine Richardson - Routledge

Listening to the Page: Adventures in Reading and Writing
by Alan Cheuse - Columbia University Press

Literacy in American Lives by Deborah Brandt - Cambridge University Press

Taking Books to Heart: How to Develop a Love of Reading in Your Child by Paul Copperman - Addison-Wesley

Stories from the Heart: Teachers and Students Researching Their Literacy Lives by Richard J. Meyer - Lawrence Erlbaum

Literacy: An International Handbook by Daniel A. Wagner - Westview Press

Literacy as Involvement: The Acts of Writers, Readers, and Texts by Deborah Brandt - Southern Illinois University Press

Read On @ Your Local Library: CalCat or WorldCat

Questia is the first online library that provides 24/7 access to the world's largest online collection of books and journal articles in the humanities and social sciences, plus magazine and newspaper articles. You can search each and every word of all of the books and journal articles in the collection. You can read every title cover to cover. $99.95 per year subscription

Children of the Code

. . . from Children of the Code

the history, science and mystery of learning to read

A Social Education Project and Public Television Documentary
~ David Boulton, co-producer and creator of the Children of the Code, is a learning ecologist, activist and technologist

The 'code', the technology of written language, is the most influential invention in the history of history. It is the "OS" (operating system) of civilization. Becoming code users literally changed how our minds think, self-reflect, remember, abstract, categorize, and codify.

Today's social institutions; our science, law, politics, organizations and technologies are all outgrowths of what the code made and makes possible in our minds. We are all, in a very real sense, children of the code. For some of us the code is an invisible, taken-for-granted, mind-enabling platform, for others it is an ever-present mind-shaming barrier that all but determines what is possible in life.

The single most powerful and influential invention in the history of western civilization is right before and between your eyes. You are using it right now. In the fraction of a second between the time your eyes scan these letters and these words stream into your thoughts, your brain, unconscious to you, is processing the code of our written language.

Similar to how a CD player converts streams of code "written" on a disc into music we can hear, reading involves a "player" in our minds that converts streams of code written on paper or screen, into words we can recognize with our minds. Reading is the process of assembling and projecting streams of thought or spoken words according to the instructions and information contained in a code. It is an artificial, unconscious, cognitive, technological, code-processing skill.

5 Major Themes:
~ The history of the code and its effects on the world around and within us
~ The cognitive, emotional, academic, and social challenges involved in learning to read
~ How the structure of the code effects learning to read it
~ How the brain learns to read
~ How teachers and parents can help children learn to read better

" Some people there are who, being grown; forget the horrible task of learning to read. It is perhaps the greatest single effort that the human undertakes, and he must do it as a child. ” John Steinbeck

New Words

Please don't get 'snitty' if you don't like to 'regift'
It's not as easy as you may think to get into Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.

L A Times: 9.21.07: by Adam Gorlick-AP

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. -- The year was 1989, and "snitty" started off strong. The word popped up in the Los Angeles Times in January, then appeared in the March and August editions of People magazine.

It was one of hundreds of words being tracked by editors at Merriam-Webster, who are always searching for new terms to enter into the Collegiate Dictionary. But something went wrong. The editors, who were eager to define "snitty" as "disagreeably agitated," no longer saw the word in national newspapers and magazines.

"Snitty" fizzled. Although it was commonly used in conversation, Merriam-Webster's editors could find only three examples of its use in print. They had no choice but to reject it. They began noticing it again 2005, first in Entertainment Weekly and then in several newspapers. With about a dozen examples of "snitty" being published, the term is now a likely shoo-in for next year's Collegiate.

Around this time each year, Lowe goes through a list of hundreds of the newly flagged words and sees how many citations were made for each. If there were at least eight, the word becomes a strong contender to be passed on to John Morse, Merriam-Webster's president and final arbiter on which words go into the dictionary.

The list now on its way to Morse contains "snitty" and 76 other words, from "air-kiss" (exactly what you think it is), to "za" (shorthand for "pizza"). READ ON

Check Out some links:

New Word Quiz

~ How many are already a part of your vocabulary?
Open Dictionary
~ Submit, share or browse entries that aren't already in our Online Dictionary.
Urban Dictionary
~ Define your world - a slang dictionary with your definitions.
Buzzwhack

~ Usually important-sounding words or phrases used primarily to impress laypersons.

Read On @ Your Local Library: CalCat or WorlCat

Fifty Years Among the New Words
John Algeo and Adele S Algeo - Cambridge University Press, 1991
~ a regular collection of neologisms in American Speech, the journal of the American Dialect Society.

Photo: by Mickipedia - Flickr

United Literacy

United Literacy is a new non-profit organization launched on International Literacy Day, September 8.

It is dedicated to making literacy an accessible and achievable goal for adult learners.

Our goal is to provide learners with comprehensive information on literacy organizations and programs in their communities. After a learner has taken the first step of admitting they need to learn to read, finding information on a program in their area can be difficult. We want to eliminate this obstacle and put motivated learners on the road to literacy.

In addition, we will provide learners with additional resources that will supplement and complement the literacy program they are participating in.

The Literacy Tribune, our bi-monthly newsletter, will give learners an opportunity to put their literacy skills to work by reading articles on every day issues such as health, finance, education, and technology. Each issue will also feature one learner’s story that will encourage and inform learners on their journey to improving their literacy skills.

International Literacy Day

September 8 is Literacy Day
The Big Read

A New Show on XM Radio beginning on September 10th !

Monday-Friday 2:30AM / 10:30AM / 4:30PM ET

The show that celebrates literature and its place in American life! We listen to classic works, chosen by the National Endowment for the Arts and read in their entirety.

Here are our first four books: We begin with Ray Bradbury's futuristic tale, Fahrenheit 451, then back to Florida in the 1920s with Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, on to the great plains with Willa Cather's My Antonia, and then to a southern mill town in Carson McCuller's The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Complete List

The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts designed to restore reading to the center of American culture. The NEA presents the Big Read in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and in cooperation with Arts Midwest.

The Big Read provides citizens with the opportunity to read and discuss a single book within their communities. This initiative comprises innovative reading programs in selected communities; expansive outreach and publicity campaigns, including broadcast and print publicity; compelling resources for discussing outstanding literature; and an extensive web site offering comprehensive information on the authors and their works.

Nearly two hundred communities nationwide will participate in the Big Read for 2007. For more information, visit: The Big Read

Audible.Com is proud to support XM and the National Endowment for the Arts' Big Read campaign. As the world's largest online destination for books, magazines, and original programming in audio, Audible makes it easy to experience great literature wherever you go. Listening is a great way to read !

Read On @ Your Local Library: CalCat or WorlCat

National Literacy Month

Celebrating Literacy Month on PBS !

SUPER WHY debuts on September 3: an animated preschool series from Out of the Blue Enterprises. This superhero show boosts literacy skills through interactive fairytale adventures. Whyatt Beanstalk, younger brother of Jack and his three friends transform into the "Super Readers" with special literacy-charged powers. The Super Readers jump into books to discover answers and find solutions to everyday preschooler questions and challenges.

WORD WORLD debuts September 3: words are truly the stars of the show. Created by Don Moody and presented by WTTW, each episode is a fun-filled narrative built around the WordFriends, who are characters first and words second. Word World is a colorful, vibrant, word-rich place where friends have fun and meet challenges in the same way: through WordPlay.

WORDGIRL debuts September 7: The new full-length series from Scholastic Media and Soup2Nuts chronicles the adventures of Becky Botsford, a mild-mannered fifth grader who, at the call of duty, transforms into WordGirl - caped crusader and definition dynamo.

Dot's Story Factory invites kids to submit their own stories for display online and on-air.

National Literacy Month

September is National Literacy Month !

katydiddys is offering Literary Cupcake Notecards!

5% of profits (and FREE shipping) will be donated to the Friends of READ Orange County, an organization that supports the adult literacy program of the Orange County Public Library.

Click here to order.