Hello Book Bums families!
This week's newsletter is about all the things we love here at Book Bums. Dr. Christy talks us through some of the science of reading and shares her passion for equipping kids with the tools they need to succeed. We also share book recommendations for kids and adults to start discussions and enrich our thinking. You'll find a poem for the season, a punny cartoon, and all our regular features. We hope you enjoy!
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Word of the Week
cultivate (kul-ti-vayt) verb/action word - to foster the growth of
I cultivate my understanding of gardening through reading and practice.
Literary Calendar
• September 15 is the birthday of mystery writer Agatha Christie.
• You can learn about her life and writing as well as explore the worlds of her books here at her website.
• She is the creator of iconic sleuths Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple.
• Her novel And Then There Were None is credited with being the first puzzle mystery - the murderer is someone on the island!
"The best time to plan a book is while you're doing the dishes."
-Agatha Christie
From our Bookshelves
Author Ann Patchett owns Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee, and I enjoy listening to the book recommendations she and her staff make on TikTok. I am now I’m recommending the books she recommended.
I enjoy pairing fiction and nonfiction children’s books (like I did last week), but this was the first time I saw someone do the same with books for adults. I purchased the books right away and read the nonfiction book first.
If you’d like to explore ideas that, perhaps, you’ve never considered about poverty in America, this book is a great choice. Is it a book I’d have chosen for enjoyment? No. Am I glad I read it? I am. This is an important issue and I want to be a part of the solution. Consider this:
The United States, the richest country on earth, has more poverty than
any other advanced democracy. Why? Why does this land of plenty allow
one in every eight of its children to go without basic necessities, permit
scores of its citizens to live and die on the streets, and authorize its
corporations to pay poverty wages? In this landmark book, acclaimed
sociologist Matthew Desmond offers a new and bracing answer: Poverty
in America persists because the rest of us benefit from it.
What? How could that be? Am I benefitting from poverty in my community? You may not agree with everything Matthew Desmond says in his book, but I believe it may open your eyes to something you’ve never considered about those less fortunate than we are. Yes, it’s a little political if you’re looking for that, but it’s also about how we might address this “morally urgent problem.”
After getting facts and figures regarding poverty in America, Such Kindness puts faces to the problem. Tom Lowe isn’t unlike most folks I know. He enjoyed working with his hands (construction), was driven toward success, and didn’t mind sacrificing to provide his family with a beautiful home. But he had a fall (from a roof) which led to his fall from grace. After the unfortunate accident, Tom found himself addicted to painkillers, and he lost everything: his wife, his son, his ability to make an income, and his hope.
It didn’t take long before I began to see how folks like us could find ourselves in a situation like Tom’s.
Such Kindness opened my eyes to what survival can look like while also illustrating that kindness is a choice we make—regardless of our circumstances—and that is where we discover the rich life.
I (Dr. Christy) am a board member of The Faith Alliance West Chester & Liberty Townships, and our mission is to alleviate local poverty and to demonstrate Christian love. My part in that mission is equipping kids to read and spell well through afterschool literacy programs and summer literacy programs that are hosted in Lakota schools. We equip kids with skills and motivation to read and spell well for we know that when kids do not have sufficient literacy skills, they have very little hope of escaping the grip of poverty.
We’re preparing to launch our afterschool programs and we’re always in need of volunteers. If you might be interested, please email me at [email protected]. It’s such a beautiful way to invest in kids who have so much to gain . . . from the instruction and from your kindness.
Tips for Families
Just over a year ago I recommended a book for children called Those Shoes by Maribeth Boelts. It’s about a boy, Jeremy, who yearns for a pair of the “cool” shoes everyone is wearing. Unfortunately, they’re too expensive. He and his grandma find a pair at the Rerun Thrift Shop. The problem is they’re too small. Jeremy buys them with his own money anyway, and he wills his feet to grow smaller or the shoes to stretch. Neither happens. Jeremy struggles with a longing to fit in and the reality of not being able to have what he wants. In the end, Jeremy learns that the joy of giving can feel even better than the joy of having.
If you’re looking for a way to address the lack of financial resources with your little ones, this book might be a good choice for launching that conversation.
Tips for Readers and Writers
There’s a term that’s getting some attention in the “science of reading” community. The term is set for variability. Though it’s not new, it’s new to those who are just learning about the structured literacy approach, and I wanted to share a bit about it.
We know that students need a strong vocabulary and lots of background knowledge to understand spoken language. To be equipped for reading and writing, kids need explicit, systematic phonics instruction* leaning heavily into the sounds we hear in words. At Book Bums we say, “We make the sounds we see. It’s a No Guess Zone!” And yet we also teach our kids to be flexible with the phonics rules we use. For example, we say, “A magic e tells a vowel to ‘Say your name!’” Then, we share that when we decode words, making the sounds we see, and it doesn’t make a word we know, it’s no problem. We just “flip it” to the other sound that vowel can make.
Magic e words that work as expected: take, here, pile, hope, cute
The vowels say their names.
Magic e words that don’t work as expected: come, have, give, love, some
The word (or sentence) doesn’t make sense if the vowel says its name, so we flip it to the other vowel sound— its short sound, and that makes a word that works.
When folks who are new to the reading science first learn about set for variability, they can be persuaded that kids should guess what words say. It’s not that. Set for variability is kids utilizing the flexibility to flip to another expected sound.
Sometimes it’s flipping from the o-w saying /Ow!/ (as in cow) to /Oh!/ (as in blow).
Sometimes it’s flipping from the c-h saying /ch/ (as in Charlie) to saying /k/ (as in Christmas) or even saying /sh/ (as in Michigan).
Set for variability is simply equipping kids to be flexible with their decoding. But it is always decoding—never guessing. They’re set for the variability in the spellings of sounds.
*This instruction is not required for every student to learn to read well, but it is required for many, and it’s beneficial for all.
Practical Grammar
Have you heard of something being dually noted? Or is it do-ly noted? Or duely noted? It can’t be dooly noted, can it? Actually, it’s duly noted.
duly: in accordance with what is required or appropriate; following proper procedure or arrangement.
It’s been duly noted that you are wearing the proper attire for the upcoming Bengals game.
Pause for Poetry
September Tomatoes
By Karina Borowicz
The whiskey stink of rot has settled
in the garden, and a burst of fruit flies rises
when I touch the dying tomato plants.
Still, the claws of tiny yellow blossoms
flail in the air as I pull the vines up by the roots
and toss them in the compost.
It feels cruel. Something in me isn’t ready
to let go of summer so easily. To destroy
what I’ve carefully cultivated all these months.
Those pale flowers might still have time to fruit.
My great-grandmother sang with the girls of her village
as they pulled the flax. Songs so old
and so tied to the season that the very sound
seemed to turn the weather.
Just for Fun
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