College Ready

Sharing strategies for student success, college readiness and academic coaching

Category Archives: Reading


by Leave a comment

The Fear Chronicles: Ray Bradbury and Getting Things Done*

Ray Bradbury always inspires.

Prairie L. Markussen's avatarToday's Author

Type “Ray Bradbury and quotes” into any search engine and what you’ll get is pure inspiration. From the famous sci-fi author of Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles, you’ll find quotes about love and reading and living and rebellion and getting on with things. Quotes about imagination and exploration and dreaming.  Quotes that bring tears to the eyes with their genuine enthusiasm for life and literature.

Try these on for size:

“You must write every single day of your life… You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads… may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.”

and

“Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The word is love. You…

View original post 524 more words


by Leave a comment

College Students: Dream Big

BE YOU

Are you heading back to campus soon?

Whether you’re a student or a teacher: Dream Big!

Connect ~ Inspire ~ Learn ~ Grow!

wordle college ready final

“Hold Fast to Dreams, for if Dreams Die, Life is a Broken-Winged Bird that Cannot Fly.” Langston Hughes

Wise Words

by Leave a comment

20130727-121734.jpg


by Leave a comment

Location Matters: Climbing the Income Equality Ladder

This graphic that appeared in the New York Times explains part of the reason why I’ve started this blog, College Ready. Location is a key factor on whether or not children are able to climb the income ladder. Upward mobility varied greatly in cities that have the same or comparable average incomes.

I’m committed to closing the Opportunity Divide, so that every student who can succeed in college, gets that chance to actually get to college. We can’t afford to let geography alone be a barrier to education, employment, equality or economic stability.

Mentors and coaches, peers, and other role models can help. As I’ve said before, the presence of just one adult in a child’s life who believes in him or her, and shows up, makes a difference. There’s not an easy answer but taking one small action can start a ripple effect. I challenge you to spend an hour a week reading to a child-even if it is your own child-and start that ripple.

What are some of your best ideas for helping everyone have a chance at the American Dream?

Easiest Flowchart Ever

by Leave a comment

20130726-070753.jpg


by 1 Comment

Keep it REAL–4 Easy Steps to Determine Source Credibility

The problem: Not all sources are created equal.

The solution: Keep it REAL–4 Easy Steps to credible & authentic source material.

When it comes time to do research, most of us (not *just our students),  reach for our phones and just “Google it.”

Yet, when it comes time to incorporate source content into their writing, we want students to go beyond that one easy step. Our students have an enormous amount of  information at their fingertips. And therein lies the difficulty. They literally carry around so much data in their smartphones, it’s enough to make a grad student’s head spin, let alone a frosh college student, or the high school set.

As we know though, all internet sources are NOT created equal. From paid links, to content farms and the like–what steps can students-and the rest of us–take to analyze a source for credibility? By using this handy chart with the mnemonic REAL , they will be able to sort through a lot of the “junk” that’s available and find a nugget of REAL, and credible information.

786e5cd6bd2669ffe2e57208cf994972[1]

The four quick and easy steps are: Read the URL. Examine Content. Ask about the Author. Look at the Links.

Use an in-class discussion to educate students on the importance of each of these four categories, using the chart as a guide while you talk. Have a variety of articles related to the same topic, but from different websites, ready to look at on your smartboard, so students have a visual for the type of comparisons and analysis that is involved.

There are other approaches to this question of source credibility. However, I’d rather give my students a quick and easy tool that they are likely to actually remember and use, then a long, pragmatic list of filters and variables that will cause their eyes to gloss over.

So, when it comes to source credibility, let’s help our students keep it REAL. What do you think–is this an approach that would work in your classroom? Or in your own professional writing? If you’re a student, would this method help you? I’d love to hear from you!

This post “4 Tools to Avoid Summer Learning Loss” from Edudemic lists four tools for stopping the “summer slide.” Check it out and help kids stay on track this summer.

“Combatisummerreading1ng learning loss over the summer for young readers is a challenge that many teachers face. The amount of time it takes to assign summer reading along with the lack of face time to keep students up to date with their reading and comprehension can make summer reading seem like a less-than-useful task.”

These apps might just make the summer reading less of a chore. What do you think?


by 3 Comments

1 Easy Way to Be a Hero

Be a Hero. Mentor a child.

Did you know…the presence of at least one caring, supportive adult in a child’s life can make all the difference?

I’m passionate about student success and educational equality. Sometimes, we look at our education system, and all we see are the broken pieces the media reports on, so we toss up our hands and say, “well what can I do, I’m just one person,”  absolving ourselves from the whole thing. But, that’s exactly right–you are ONE person and ONE person is all it takes. That’s the Power of You.

Research shows that when adults get involved to mentor and work with students, they have the power to help kids increase10573321855[1] academic achievement, stay on track, think more positively about themselves and increase their opportunities of going on to college.

Think you’re too busy to get involved? Mentoring doesn’t take as much time as you might think. It is as simple as signing up to read to a child for an hour a week. This can make all the difference in the life of an at-risk child, because statistics show us that a child that can’t read well by the end of third grade is FOUR times more likely to drop out of high school.

So, the easy way to earn your Super Hero cape? Sign up as a mentor. Help close the opportunity gap a little bit. And the funny thing is–you will end up feeling like you’re the one that was given a gift. That’s right! By helping someone else move forward a little bit…you move yourself forward.

If you don’t know where to start, try your local library or the United Way. If you already volunteer as a mentor, leave a comment and tell us what you’re involved in. If you think you might want to mentor a young person, but haven’t made the leap, what’s holding you back? I’d love to hear from you.

Image

Source: Double Jeopardy: How 3rd Grade Reading Scores and Poverty Influence High School Graduation

This is true!

by Leave a comment

This is true!

Books are like oxygen.

To me, they are nothing short of life support.

Some of my favorite books to read lately are Children’s Literature. I’m rediscovering those sweet tales, and they’re the perfect reminder of all the good in the world. Books like Charlotte’s Web and The Wind in the Willows. They also remind us, that even as adults, it’s ok to smile, to have fun, to take care of your friends…and

…to Dream.

So, what are you reading?