Newsletter -Womens History Month - March 7, 2025 Book Bums Book Bums Newsletter

Hello Book Bums families!

March is Women's History Month. You may notice that all this month we'll be sharing women authors in our Literary Calendar section. National Geographic Kids is a good source for learning about history with kids. You can find their article and photos about the month here.

This week in the newsletter Dr. Christy shares some tips for educational success and gets into the science of syllables. We're also starting to think about spring planting and summer jobs. Read on for all the details!

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Word of the Week

jot (jaht) verb/action word - to write something down quickly, to take a note

Studies have shown that students process and retain information more effectively when they jot down notes by hand rather than typing.

Literary Calendar

March 12 is the birthday of Virginia Hamilton.
This children's author was born in Yellow Springs, Ohio, and went to Ohio State.
She won the National Book Award for Children's Literature and a Newbery Medal in 1975.
You can read more about her life and writing at her website.

From our Bookshelves

In a best-selling book called Up from Nothing: The Untold Story of How We (All) Succeed by John Hope Bryant, the author identifies five pillars of success. They include: the importance of a strong educational foundation, financial literacy, supportive family relationships, a positive sense of self, and having inspiring figures to emulate.

Bryant believes that the American Dream is still here for the taking—even in these challenging economic times. When we embrace a power mindset and develop personal responsibility, Bryant believes anyone can overcome obstacles and achieve success, and he says that everyone benefits as more and more people achieve success.

Bryant shares his own story of rising from humble beginnings to illustrate how individuals can shift from surviving to thriving. Up From Nothing effectively makes a case for building a more equitable society where everyone has access to the tools for success.

In truth, though the book was good, I preferred the podcast John Hope Bryant did with Brian Tome on The Aggressive Life. If you’re interested in hearing how a successful entrepreneur is making the world a better place by teaching financial literacy, an all too often missing piece when equipping folks for success, give it a listen.

Tips for Families

I jotted a few notes as I listened to The Aggressive Life podcast with John Hope Bryant that I mentioned above, and I thought four points in particular could be helpful for families, particularly considering reading and literacy achievement.

I noted that Bryant stated:

1. Confidence comes with competence.

Don’t we all want our kids to feel confident in school? They don’t have to know everything, but we want them to feel confident that they can learn and keep pace with their classmates.

Here’s the thing: If we want our kids to feel confident in their classrooms, we must ensure they’re competent. When our children are struggling, we simply must provide the support they need to get back on track.

2. What you don’t know that you don’t know but you think you know but you really don’t know is the crime.

In the educational realm, we talk about conscious competence (You’re good at it and you know it. You took some classes, learned a lot, and you’re now good at making pottery.), unconscious competence (You’re good at it, and you don’t even realize it. You can sing along with a song and harmonize without any knowledge of what you’re doing or how you’re doing it.), conscious incompetence (You’re completely aware that you’re not good at something. You’re trying to help your daughter with her trigonometry homework, and you have absolutely no idea how to help.), and unconscious incompetence (You aren’t aware of it, but you’re not good at something. You’re singing the national anthem at the game, and some very rude folks begin plugging their ears.)

Too many struggling readers believe they’re doing just fine. They are unconsciously incompetent. It’s not unkind to acknowledge struggles and plan for addressing them. Not addressing them would be unkind.

3. We should all get as much education as we can.

We must always be learning. Whether it’s from books, in formal classroom settings, or simply gathering with people who know a little more about something that we do so we can learn from them. We must make education a priority—for ourselves and for our children.

4. If I don’t respect me, I won’t respect you.

In the On Your Way with Dr. Christina Williams podcast this week, you will learn a bit about Howard Glasser’s book Transforming the Difficult Child; The Nurtured Heart Approach. This approach helps children come to respect themselves because their caregivers speak aloud what their kids are doing and name what those actions reveal about the child’s greatness. When kids respect themselves, they come to respect others as well.

Wordology Workshop

Remember that the Latin root sci means to know.
You can find it in the words conscious and unconscious, meaning knowing and unknowing, in the Tips for Families section above.
Sci also adds meaning to many common English words such as science, omniscient, prescient, and conscientious.

Tips for Raising Readers and Writers

It’s that time! Even if you don’t have a large garden plot, surely those fresh new seed packets call to you this time of year. Get your kids in on the fun too. Invite them to choose a packet or two and task them with reading the instructions for a successful crop. This investigation could involve calendar skills, counting skills, measuring (depth for planting), and so much more. Engage your kids in planting and challenge them to keep a journal noting how things are going throughout the life of their plants.

I saw this graphic showing what can be planted in March, and I thought I’d share it here. On those delightfully warm days, let’s grab a trowel and plant something that makes us happy!

Tips for Teachers

Syllables form the core structure of words, with six primary types playing a pivotal role in literacy development: closed, open, vowel-consonant-e, vowel team, consonant -le, and r-controlled.

We absolutely teach all the syllable types in the Foundations for Literacy curriculum that we use, exclusively, at Book Bums. We do not, however, devote much time naming the syllable types; nor do we devote much time to syllabication.

Dr. Timothy Shanahan recently stated, "Those regimes that taught rigid spelling rules for syllabication didn't improve reading, while those that aimed at fostering conditionality and flexibility in the use of syllables to decode words did significantly better."

This means that when we say, “If that doesn’t make a word you know, just ‘flip it’ to the other sound you’ve learned, and see if that works,” we’re doing what the research says is true about how to best help kids to become skilled readers and spellers.

During assessments, I’ve seen kids underline word parts and draw lines to denote syllable breaks—and the children still misspelled the words.

Note that we do spend a little time dividing words into syllables with the primary aim of ensuring there is at least one vowel in every syllable.

Note too that we will never cover word parts to help kids read longer words.
We must allow kids to see how letters impact one another. We may circle word parts or draw arrows, but we will not cover any letters as kids are decoding.

Students need to develop a mental set for diversity or variability when it comes to word recognition.
Telling students that VCV patterns are to be divided after the first vowel may benefit the reading of words like label or tiger, but it plays hob with words such as statue.

~Dr. Timothy Shanahan

News from Book Bums

We’re hiring! We’re looking for tutors for both the Kids First and the West Chester Book Bums locations, but we’re also hiring teachers for the Book Bums Summer Fun program (Lakota’s summer school program) that will be held at VanGorden Elementary School from 8:15-11:15, Monday through Friday for three weeks in June and again for three weeks in July. Please help us spread the word. We need lots of fantastic teachers to help us serve struggling readers in our community. Email Dr. Christy at [email protected] for more information.

Practical Grammar

If you had to infer the meaning of the following words, could you do it from the following text? Could your kids? Ask your older kids what they would guess the words decent, descent, and dissent mean using only their background knowledge and the text. You could model (by thinking aloud) how you would guess what the first bolded word means. Then have them try the other two. Be sure to help them differentiate the pronunciations. Though they’re similar, these are not homophones.

decent- acceptable standards, good, sufficient

descent- act of moving downward

dissent- to disagree or to be dissatisfied with an opinion or decision (especially of those in authority)

Just for Fun

Before the leaves begin to reappear on the trees, notice together all the squirrels’ dreys in your neighborhood. Share what these dreys look like on the inside. It’s not just a clump of dead leaves and twigs after all!

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West Chester, OH 45069

Newsletter -Womens History Month – March 7, 2025