The Newbery Medal

And the Medalist for 2013 is The One and Only Ivan, by Kathleen Applegate!

Now, what is the Newbery Medal?  The Newbery Medal is the oldest and most prestigious award in children's literature and is given to the author/book with the "most distinguished contribution to children's literature".  As my children's librarian explained it, the Newbery is for writing, the Caldecott is for illustration.   The Newbery Honor is given to noteworthy runners up to the Medal.

Newbery Medal/Honor books are usually pretty interesting and always well written, but not always guaranteed to be appropriate for young children nor necessarily enjoyable reading for everyone.   And sometimes the books (like all books) get dated after a while, using vocabulary and expressing viewpoints that you may not want your child to repeat in an undiscriminating fashion.  If you're looking for a little light reading to relax the brain or you're trying to catch the interest of a reluctant reader, it might not be the best place to start.  If you're looking for a challenge or a new author, the Newbery list is a worthwhile place to check. 

Newbery Medal/Honor Books Featured in the Young Precocious Reader
Abel's Island

Doctor Doolittle

Multiple books in the Little House series

Mr. Popper's Penguins

The Twenty One Balloons

My Father's Dragon

Charlotte's Web

The Cricket in Times Square

From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E Frankwiler

The Tale of Despereaux

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon

Developing comprehension, part II

This is the part of teaching comprehension that gets technical.  Unfortunately I am not a professional educator.  However, as a parent of a precocious reader and a homeschooler I'm obliged to learn something and so I'll pass on what I learn to you.

Comprehension in small children going from basic picture books to beginning chapter books definitely depends on the breadth of their life experiences.  This is where part I of this article comes in.

However, comprehension in a child who is going from beginning chapter books to novels to complex beasts like The Chronicles of Narnia and the like, or to other types of text like recipes,  labels, instructions, is quite different.  Here I think there are some basic things any parent can do to facilitate the comprehension of text.

1)  Point out things like chapter titles or headings.  Discuss what they are for and what they are saying with relation to the text.
2)  Stop periodically to ask the child to summarize what they have read orally.  You might have to prompt them with questions like:  what happened first? next? last?  what was the basic problem?  how was it solved?
3)  Point out the basic organization of the text if it is anything different from paragraphs.  For example, if you want to know about how long something is going to cook, usually there is a special heading at the beginning of a recipe called "cooking time".

That being said, there's something to be said for letting your child learn at their own pace.  I mean, if they're a precocious reader, they're already ahead of the game, so its not like they'll be behind if you don't push them.  If they read a book from end to beginning and enjoy it, well, isn't that the point?  They can read it again later the "right" way and enjoy it again all new.   The only caveat is that you should make sure your child doesn't learn to coast for so long that they don't actually pick up the comprehension skills when it is appropriate to do so.

Developing comprehension, part I

Being a good reader is much more than "cracking the code".  On the one hand there are children who can decode words in an advanced way, but who cannot make sense of the meaning of those words.  This is referred to as hyperlexia, and is distinct from precocious reading.  A precocious reader has advanced decoding skills as well as commensurate comprehension skills.

Developing good comprehension skills in small children requires exposure to a variety of experiences--not just books.  So, field trips are great thing for developing a strong reader--museums, nature walks, cultural events,  the county fair, the zoo, even trips to the mechanic or the grocery store can be opportunities for developing vocabulary and comprehension.  Also, reading a variety of material (not just books) can be helpful--recipes, the sports page (stats), charts and graphs, assembly instructions, instruction manuals, nutrition labels (yes, the cereal box is ok!).  

This is also where the nonfiction section of the library comes in handy.  We noticed that our DD can really dig into a novel set in the Middle Ages since we spent a while learning about castles when we acquired a toy castle, and about the Renaissance when we read the Mixed up Files of Basil E Frankwiler, whereas something set in the Islamic world is much harder for her to grasp.  So, if a book or toy starts to need history or science that your child has not yet encountered, instead of treating it as a hindrance, treat it as a great opportunity to raid the library's nonfiction section.

Question of the Week

I realize that this is probably more like question of the month.  Sometimes it just takes awhile to find a good question.   

What do you think happens next?

This is a good one to check general comprehension, and also to point out plot devices used to build suspense.  Obviously, it can only be used if you control the reading material, and not if your child has already devoured the book.

Girls books, boys books--does it matter?

When my DD was born, I learned that our society is in some ways becoming very gender segregated.  Castles come in pink versions and blue versions.  Leap frog toys come in purple and green.  Clothes are not gender neutral, even for babies.  For example, if  I want to buy a red coat for my daughter,  I have to shop in the boys section.  I don't consider myself much of a feminist.  However, there are many wonderful books out there that don't deserve to be gender segregated.  So, I challenge you to buck the trend!

Here are some ways this works for the younger set:
1)  Young children may like a book for quirky reasons.  My boy likes Cinderella because of the dogs in the last picture of our particular version.  There isn't anything about those dogs in the book.  They're just in the picture.  Same thing for his manners book.  There's a part of a truck on one page.  He loves that.  Nothing about trucks in the actual text at all!

2)  A child may like one of the supporting characters more than the main character.  My daughter has a serious fascination with the dragon of St. George and the Dragon.   It is currently chalked (in hot pink) on our driveway.

3)  Some books are just so well written that they speak to everyone!

Overdrive

Ok, ok, I'm one of those people who is slightly technophobic.  I don't even have a Facebook account.  BUT, today, I just discovered something really cool.  You can get ebooks from the library on your smartphone.  Its called Overdrive.  Our library has some great titles available for kids.  So if you're ever stuck without a book--HORRORS--now you can get one on your phone--breathe a deep sigh of relief.  Never be without a book again.
 
1)  You do need a library card/account.
2)  You can download the app directly from the Google Play store.
3)  OR you can access it through your library's app  (YES, you can renew books and put books on hold from your smartphone!)--even our little city library is connected.

Question of the week

Since we haven't been doing a lot of heavy reading this week, I asked this question after we saw a kid's musical.

Question of the week:  What did you like best about the show and how would you change it?

Question of the week

Here is another tried and true question for your precocious reader.  Remember, these questions are not comprehension questions so much as appreciation questions and thinking questions.  You can ask them orally to a younger reader, or if your reader is able to write well, you may pose it as an essay question or a reading journal question.  Many teachers will have students write them a letter about their book, and then write letters back.  Your kid may get a  real kick out of getting a letter from you!

The question of the week:  What do you think would have happened differently if ... ?

How to challenge an advanced reader

Challenging books are only the first part of challenging your precocious reader.  The technical aspect of decoding words is only the beginning of appreciating great books and learning content.  How do we get our kids to read more deeply?  By asking the right questions.

Sometimes advanced readers can get the right questions asked by participating in gifted classes or pull out groups in which the teacher asks more complex questions.  Its important to ascertain whether that is occurring in your child's classroom.  Your child might also participate in a book club through a local public library, or possibly a church or bookseller.   However, if you have a very young child, none of those may be accessible for your child at the moment.

So, I'm going to start a series on questions.  You can either ask these orally with a younger child, or have an older child write/draw responses in a response journal.  To start off with, I would go with a book that is at grade level or maybe just above grade level, because you want your child to focus on their response, not so much on decoding.

The question of the week was:  what did you like best about this book?

Seems simple, but for us, it lead to a conversation about bullfighting, the history of bullfighting, Roman gladiators, and why we should be kind to animals....  So, you never can tell...

Does early reading cause eye damage?

My daughter had her opthalmologist appointment today.  We posed the question, "Could reading at such an early age cause eye damage?"  The answer was, "There is no need to fear any permanent damage to the eyes caused by reading small print at an early age."

Younger children do tend to be somewhat far sighted, meaning they have to use their eye muscles more to focus on print near to their face, but not all young children are far sighted and even those who are are usually mildly so.  So, reasonable amounts of novel reading should not cause a problem.  Excessive reading may cause temporary eye strain.  I remember this well as a child.  However, the headache always went away after I put the book down for a while.  I am very myopic, but the eye doctor assured me, it is not from reading.

What's a Lexile measure?

A Lexile measure is a number that captures how technically difficult a text is to read, based on word frequency and sentence length.  It is not a measure of grade level proficiency, nor of ease of comprehension.   I use it to estimate how difficult a text may be to read.
200-300 a very easy first step reader
400-500  more complex with a real story or maybe early chapters
700-800 real chapter books with complex plots, generally for the proficient elementary school reader
>1000 an adult level book

That being said, there are a LOT of outliers.   I mostly use Lexiles to rule out books that will be too easy, than to rule out books that may or may not be too hard.   This is because a lot of perfectly good early chapter books have complex sentence structure or vocabulary while at the same time having juvenile content and complexity of plot.

See www.lexile.com for more information.