Two Inspiring Books for HS Boys

Take a look at the two inspiring books suggested for high school boys on the Kids Learning Stuff blog -http://kidslearningstuff.blogspot.com/search?q=carson
Both books - Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story and A Sense of Where You Are: Bill Bradley at Princeton would be good considerations for a high school library. Thanks, Mary, for sharing with us.

Michael Sullivan's Books for Boys

Michael Sullivan, author of Connecting Boys with Books, has a great web site that includes this page, Books for Boys. He includes a list of picture books and chapter books ranked by difficulty- low to advanced. . . and the list is updated to include some new (2006) titles. I got lots of new titles to add to my next book order. Check it out at http://www.talestoldtall.com/BooksforBoys.html

Ideas to get boys reading - Other blogs' posts

While surfing the blogsphere tonight, I found several other blog posts of interest about "get Johnny reading":
Blogs:
Arthur Slade: Writing for Young Adults
Boys2Read Post
http://arthurslade.blogspot.com/2006/08/boys2read.html
Rockin’ and Readin’ Literature Post
http://arthurslade.blogspot.com/2006/08/rockin-and-readin-literature.html
Tim Fredrick’s ELA Teaching Blog
http://timfredrick.typepad.com/timfredrick/choice/index.html
“Helping Adolescent Boys Be More Engaged in the ELA Classroom”
BookLust
http://storms.typepad.com/booklust/2006/04/i_got_posted_7.html
boys vs. girls reading – “morphing” literacy

Be sure to post your success stories in "get Johnny reading" here!

Reading List -"Johnny Won't Read"

Here is a list of readings related to "get Johnny reading." You will very likely find, not only interesting statistics, but some ideas to help your male students read more.

**The United States is not alone in this concern about boys' level of reading. Be sure to check out the resources on the National Literacy Trust site from the United Kingdom.

Why Johnny Won’t Read by Mark Bauerlein and Sandra Stotsky
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33956-2005Jan24.html
“From 1992 to 2002, the gender gap in reading by young adults widened considerably. In overall book reading, young women slipped from 63 percent to 59 percent, while young men plummeted from 55 percent to 43 percent.”

The Education Gender Gap: Why are boys not making the grade?
http://www.wrrb.org/forum_060519.pdf
What has educational research suggested?
School libraries carry many fewer books of appeal to boys.
Few if any boys’ books have been published in the past 30 years
School librarians/teachers discourage boys from reading the kinds of books that do appeal
to them.

Help Wanted: Boys Reading by Laura Sokal
http://www.ldac-taac.ca/Research/boys_reading-e.asp

Douglass Elementary School in Boulder, Colorado has had enormous success in closing the reading gap: www.douglasselementary.com. More information about Douglass Elementary is available here: www.douglasselementary.com/gendergap.pdf
“Offering some opportunities for single-sex activities within a classroom (i.e. all-boy
literature circle)

National Literacy Trust Research – UK
http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/Research/researchindex3.html
Reading Champions – UK based project
http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/campaign/Champions/school.html
Reading Champions Toolkit - Great resource, especially page 6 –“What Works-The Twenty First Century Boy”
http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/campaign/Champions/RCtoolkit.pdf
Reading for Pleasure – A Research Overview (National Literacy Trust – UK)
http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/Research/Reading%20for%20pleasure.pdf

Alex Rider, Fabulous Book Trailer!

If your boys haven't discovered the Alex Rider series by Anthony Horowitz, the book trailer at the link I've added below will definitely help to entice them to try one of the books! The trailer is professionally created, has sound, animation, and all of the elements of a spy thriller! Check it out! (And be sure to send us any that you discover, too!)
http://www.alexrideradventures.com/images/trailer.swf

Real Men Read! Grand Debut

West Monroe High School's Real Men Read program debuted this week during Teen Read Week. Posters decorated the boards and surrounding walls outside the library.

"WMHS Rebels Read" Book Blog Debuts

We debuted our high school's first blog, "WMHS Rebels Read" today during Teen Read Week. The URL is http://rebelsread.blogspot.com/
It is a moderated blog that will allows students and teachers to post comments about what they are reading. We sent out flyers to the English teachers to post in their classrooms to help encourage students to participate and invited the English teachers to become charter blog members. We hope this will become a forum for book discussion and provide a means of sharing great reads.

"Get Johnny Reading!"

"Get Johnny Reading!"

Does anyone know of a graphic novel that is subscription-based like a magazine? I read somewhere that you could subscribe to one that would be sent each month/weekly, etc. that could be checked out like a magazine. Anyone know about these?
Also, has anyone ordered graphic novels or other books from Markin? On lm_net today someone wrote that this company is the one they order hardbound graphic novels from. I am not familiar with this company.

Graphic Novels Display at Good Hope Middle School

"Fact: The average comic book introduces children to nearly twice as many new words as the average children's book and more than five times as many as the average child-adult conversation." (1993 study published in The Journal of Child Language.)

West Monroe, LA. (Elizabeth Dumas, LMS)

Welcome to "Get Johnny Reading!"

If you've come this far, we hope that you will share your ideas with us! We believe that reading is not a lost art! Working together, we can get our children reading again!
Check out our links! Please suggest some of your own!