Image source: http://robertmunsch.com

After the break, we continued exploring more of his stories: in electronic format (The Paper Bag Princess on Tumble Books) and in print format as a read-aloud (Moose) and while browsing through the many titles we now have in our collection. These explorations helped us to gather information about the author. Here are some of the things students found out so far:

There are lots of animals in his stories.
He writes about many different things.
His stories are funny.
His voice is funny. 
He reads with a lot of expression.
He likes to use repetition in his writing.
He does not draw the pictures but writes the stories.
He works with an illustrator called Michael Martchenko.

Over the next weeks, we will continue reading Robert Munsch books and also look at other ways that might help us answer our questions. In the process, students will experience a sequence of search strategies that guide them to kid-friendly information sources. Further, they go through an inquiry process while being introduced to a new author, whose books might become a favourite. 

While the video below features only 1ai students as it was prepared as part of 1ai's assembly on November 1, 2013, it is a snapshot of what both grade 1 classes have done so far in this inquiry - stay tuned for more upcoming news!

Over the past couple of weeks, G2 students have been on an exciting journey of learning, exploring the books of author and illustrator Tomie dePaola (click here if you missed the first post about this inquiry). While the journey of learning and an inquiry never really end as new learning usually leads to new questions, we spent some time last week reflecting on what we learned and what we want to do with this learning now.

We found out a lot (some is shared and summarised in the video below) but were left with some unanswered questions to which we hope to get the answer from Tomie dePaola himself (we will send him the link of this blogpost and the video). In the process, students practised a wide range of inquiry skills, such as going through an inquiry process, formulating questions, following a sequence of search strategies, searching for information in various sources of information (in print and electronically) and summarising what they found out in their own words. In addition, many added the author and his books to their list of favourite reading materials.

The video below provides just a glimpse of our learning journey. I encourage you to watch it with your son/daughter and let him/her tell you more about Tomie dePaola and our inquiry. Enjoy!

In preparing for Parent Teacher Conferences this week, I had to think of past conferences and conversations with parents. No matter the age of the child, what parents are usually seeking advice on is very similar and aimed at finding out how to support their child in developing a love for reading. Research has proven beyond any doubt, that students who read for pleasure perform better academically across the curriculum – and success in their educational and future professional lives is something we all wish for our children. Further, as adults we know how powerful a good story can be, how it can open up new worlds for us, take us on the most enchanting journeys, broadening our horizons by letting us walk in the shoes of real and made-up characters. We all want our children to have these experiences with books because they are the ones that instill a love for reading, making our children pick up books because they want to and not because we require it.

The two most often asked questions in this context are how to support a child in growing as a reader and in developing a love for reading and which titles to seek out, i.e. a list of recommended or must-read books. Here a few thoughts on these two questions. If you have signed up to meet with me during conferences, you will definitely hear me refer to these. If you aren’t able to come to conferences, I hope you will find my comments a helpful replacement. Should you have any additional questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Of major importance is that young children have the opportunity to make many positive experiences with stories and reading even before they begin reading themselves. Not only will it help them to make sense of the world around them but will also provide a great starting point for independent reading. When children begin to emerge as readers, we have to do everything possible to keep the reading experience enjoyable so that reading does not become a task. Only then can we be sure that they will keep reading, not because we tell them to but because they want to.

Not included in this list is nonfiction and the with older readers ever so popular graphic novels, such as Babymouse, Squish, Big Nate and Amulet.

All the above mentioned books are available in our library and you will be able to see many of the titles on display tomorrow (if the book hasn't been checked out in the meantime).

Some additional articles/resources you might enjoy reading (just click on the title to be linked to the full text of the article):

Literacy Resources for Parents (Reading Rockets)

Motivating Kids to Read (Reading is Fundamental)

Developing a Lifelong Reader

Building Literacy Every Day (of special interest to parents with young children)

10 Read-aloud Commandments (Mem Fox)

Thoughts (Mem Fox)

A special highlight of each library visit for PK1 and PK2 is story time in Mandarin. While we usually begin with sharing a story in English, followed by a reading response or other learning engagement and check out, we end the students' time in the library with a story in Mandarin. Each class comes to the library accompanied by the respective EC Mandarin Teacher. They support the students' library time in various ways, one being to read aloud and talk with the children about a story in Mandarin. This is a special moment also for me, as I enjoy sitting back and listening to a story read by someone else. Even though it is in a language of which I know very little, thanks to the teachers, the children and the illustrations, I am usually able to follow the story, even pick up a new word here and there. Most impressive is to listen to the children, as they respond and comment on the story. Sometimes I even get to hear a beautiful song in Mandarin.

As the Mandarin teachers share their stories, which often come from our World Languages section in the library, it is a wonderful additional opportunity for me to learn more about the Mandarin books we have in our library. Some are translations from anglophone children's literature, others are titles originally written and published in Mandarin. There are fiction and nonfiction titles. Some books are bilingual Mandarin-English. I encourage you to browse through our Mandarin section the next time you visit the library.

During their last two visits to the library, grade 5 students had the opportunity to use DestinyQuest. DQ is a feature of our online catalog, similar to social media sites such as Goodreads and Shelfari, which allow the user to keep track of books read and share recommendations with friends. What makes DQ the ideal platform for primary school students is that it is safe since it is restricted to our school community and our library's collection. This allows our students to gain first experiences with social media in a controlled and safe environment. For the time being, their circle of friends is limited to classmates, teachers and librarians.

I love listening to the conversations that happen while students add books to their online shelves and share recommendations with friends, teachers and librarians. It is obvious from the high level of engagement, that students enjoy using this online tool. Most exciting is, however, for everyone - students and teachers alike - receiving a personalized recommendation. Who would not want to check out and give a book a try that was especially picked for us by a friend? Here just two examples received through DQ (the student's name is left out since this is an open blog - well done, you know who you are!)

In using DQ, we not only encourage the development of a sense of community as readers, we also address numerous benchmark skills under Standard 2 (Pursuing Personal and Aesthetic Growth) and Standard 3 (Demonstrating Social Responsibility), i.e. participates in networking and sharing of books and information; uses online tools efficiently to read, send, or post electronic messages to peers, experts, and family members; discusses responsible use and misuse of technology and describes personal consequences of inappropriate use of information and technology.

The selection of apps and their organization on the iPad is aimed at helping students to understand and experience the iPad's potential as a tool for learning, reading and creating. We have begun with just a small number of free apps but will keep adding to this selection over the weeks and months to come.  (Most of these apps are available across App Stores. Our iPads are linked to the Hong Kong App Store.)

I get often asked how I discover new apps. While I hear of some apps through my professional learning network on their blogs and social media such as Twitter, I regularly check out the following websites:

Digital Storytime's Daily Deals Page

Educational Apps on Sale

School Library Journal App Reviews

I am always happy to chat about apps, so if you have more questions, just send me an email or stop by the library. (Remember: Tuesday and Thursday afternoons our library is open to the school community from 3-4pm. That is the best time to stop by.).

G3 students have been busy with their inquiry about author and illustrator Anthony Browne, trying to find answers to their many questions (click here to read the post on how this inquiry began). Using different sources of information in print and electronic format turned out to be a surprising experience for many, as students had not expected to find books still the fastest and easiest to access source. Students were also surprised to discover that not every author has a personal or official website (yet). Information on Anthony Browne, for example, could only be found on his publishers' websites. As we sorted out the information, we were excited about the many things we had learned, but also had to discover that several of our questions could not be answered through the information sources we had used so far.

We realized that Anthony Browne himself would have to answer these questions - and then Ms. Phyllis had the most exciting news for us: she found out that Anthony Browne will be in Hong Kong this November (check out the Bring Me a Book website for more details about the workshop). So we began to think about how we could convince him to come and visit us at HKA (a wonderful opportunity to take action, an important element of any inquiry). We decided to share what we had learned about him already and liked about his books, along with some reasons why we think he should visit us. The result is the video below, which we hope you and Anthony Browne will enjoy watching.

After inquiring into the writing and illustrating of Emily Gravett over the past couple of weeks (if you missed the introduction to our inquiry, please click here to read the respective post), Kindergarteners were ready to share what they had discovered and learned about the author. After listening to a number of her stories, exploring other books with peers, and attentively watching a drawing workshop video by Emily Gravett, we were able to answer many of our questions and learn lots of additional information.

As is often the case with inquiries, some questions are easier and faster to answer than others. So we still have some questions to which we don't have an answer, the most pressing, whether she could come to HKA and read one of her stories to us. We think that only Emily Gravett herself would be able to answer that question:

So, dear Emily Gravett, if you should come across this blog post and video, we would love to hear from you. Maybe you will come to Hong Kong in the future. We would love to welcome you at our school. You have so many fans here :)

One of the major goals of our library program is to nurture lifelong readers. We do this for example by exposing students to a wide variety of authors and illustrators so that they can discover stories, writing and illustrating styles they enjoy and appreciate. The other important goal is to help students acquire the necessary information literacy skills to conduct these (and other) inquiries more and more independently.

During this school year, we will conduct several author inquiries which will all follow the same inquiry process, one that is used throughout the Primary School. It is based on Kath Murdoch's inquiry cycle. While I will share more about the inquiry cycle in future posts, I want to highlight a few really important aspect of inquiry-based learning: students get the opportunity to tune into a new author by reading stories and exploring books to then decide what they are curious about and want to learn. Therefore, the whole inquiry is student-driven since students get to decide what they want to find out and learn about. Students are involved in the finding out process as we explore print and electronic resources to discover the answers. We, the teacher librarians and teachers, are facilitators and co-learners in this process. The younger the students, the more we model and support them in the process; the older the student the more independent they conduct in particular the search process. Really important is also that we make time for students to reflect on and share what they have learned and to think on what they can do with what they have learned. In the case of this Emily Gravett inquiry for example, students plan on checking out her books again, and again, and again! 

Below is a short video that summarizes our inquiry. Enjoy!

We thereby discovered that a lot of his books are about friendship, he uses pencils, coloured pencils and water colours for his drawings, there are many animals in his books, he likes using speech bubbles, his stories are funny, his favourite books are those about Piggie and Elephant, and he gets his ideas from watching people. 

Students were happy to share their learning through drawings, writing and on video. What a big impact the inquiry had on them as readers was obvious in the number of students checking out and requesting one of his books. This is one of the goals we aim at with these inquiries, that students discover favourite authors and illustrators whose books they truly enjoy reading.

In addition, students experience what an inquiry process looks and feels like and that our questions and wonderings can be answered by searching for information in various sources. As the year progresses, we will conduct more of such inquiries, which will always follow the same process: we tune into the author by exploring some of his/her stories; we record what we are curious about and want to learn about this author; we search for answers to our questions by exploring books and online resources (at some point also interview experts to gain further information on people and other topics); we reflect on what we have learned and share it with others. This process, which is based on and follows Kath Murdoch's inquiry cycle, is used throughout our Primary School across grades as students inquire into various topics. 

Enjoy the video below which is a small snapshot of what our inquiry looked like.

In addition to searching for specific animals, World Book Kids provides opportunities for browsing and discovering animals we might not have heard about or know little about. Our students were especially excited when Mr. Chris Lam, our IT Co-teacher, introduced the "Compare" feature of World Book Kids. 

World Book Online is easy to access in a few simple steps as demonstrated in the image below. (Your child has been given a printed version of this pathfinder which includes our user ID and password, information we cannot share through the blog.) Encourage your child to show you how to search World Book - to find information on an animal or any other topic they (and you) are interested in.