'New' Favorites

Children's book author and illustrator James Marshall started his prolific outpouring of works in the mid 70s. I first came to know him through his retelling of classic fairy tales.

In 1989 his retelling of Goldilocks and the Three Bears was recognized as a Caldecott Honor book for his outstanding illustrations. That was followed by The Three Little Pigs, Hansel and Gretel and my personal favorite Red Riding Hood. The heroines in his hands are spunky, sassy gals who have no trouble defending themselves.

I kept these titles in my stock of must share texts that I bring out year after year. Somewhere in the periphery there were the Miss Nelson books, and the Fox stories.

However, it wasn't until this year that I became a huge fan of Mr. Marshall.

It started with the George and Martha series. These are very short stories, usually five to a book, about two portly hippopotami who share a close friendship. Children can witness as they negotiate the larger themes of honesty, friendship, loyalty, respect and privacy.

An added bonus is the rich, delicious vocabulary sprinkled throughout the texts. Sadly, there are only seven titles in the series. Lauren went exploring on the Internet to see if there were any more in the pipeline and that is when we discovered that this unique author/illustrator passed away in 1992.

Another recent favorite is Snake: His Story about a snake who, unlike his parents who are deaf, can hear. There is a bit of a dilemma about what to do with this little guy who swings to the music his family does not hear. Of course it all works out well in the end.

Other titles you might want to check out are The Guest about the friendship between a moose and a snail and a book series about The Stupid Family. The Stupids are really, really stupid but rest assured, it is okay to laugh at their antics.

Pilot Study

I have spent quite a large chuck of time this semester working on the pilot study for my dissertation.  A pilot study is also known as a feasibility study.  It allows the researcher to test run the instruments, assessment tools and/or methodology that will be later used for the grand study that will ultimately bring you to the completion of a Ph.D. program.

The pilot study paper is written like a mini dissertation.  It generally follows the five chapter structure of introduction, review of literature, research methods, research findings and discussion.

The absolute beauty of reaching this level of scholarly achievement is that the focus of your research is entirely up to you.  So, you are free to delve deeply into an area that you are passionate about. This is a good thing as you will be living with it for years.  (I am reminded of the phrase that doctoral students often repeat as they near the end "A good dissertation is a done dissertation".)

The title of my pilot study is Case studies of first grade Deaf readers: Looking at knowledge of conceptual signs and reading comprehension.  I had a different, rather catchy title there for a while but it was deemed too vague - no one could tell what my study was about.  I decided to go with the above title (for now) and save my clever, witty title for a book or at least a chapter in my dissertation.  I won't give it away just yet lest it be borrowed by some other fledgling researcher, can you imagine the horror?!

I chose to do a qualitative case study of two culturally Deaf first grade students and simply observe and describe how they use their knowledge of American Sign Language while they read independent & instructional level texts.

The new challenge of this for me was going through the process of gaining approval from the Institutional Review Board (IRB). In order to do any study with human subjects you must submit a proposal, gain permission from the subjects or their parents, the school (setting) and from the district.

I am told that completed pilot studies can be reformatted and submitted to educational journals for publication or academic conferences as presentations. It seems there are quite a few possibilities, especially if your area of study is the 'hot' topic at the moment.

We'll see.

For now, I am thoroughly enjoying the process and give thanks to those who are supporting me through it all; Dr. Marshall George, Dr. Joanna Uhry, Rebecca Marshall, Lauren Ridloff - Happy Birthday - and my fellow doctoral students (especially Cortney, Cayne and Linda).

What a fantastic journey!

Brainstorming

Over the past several weeks we have been exploring non fiction books during reading workshop. I can state with confidence that our students are gaining expertise in identifying features of non fiction texts such as photographs, table of contents, diagrams, glossary and headers.

Now that they have been immersed in the 'reading of' we have began to delve into the 'writing of' factual material.  The key is to allow the students to choose a topic that is of interest to them and facilitate their learning, deepen their understanding and provide shape, structure & support.

To that end we asked our class to brainstorm ideas about possible topics.

Here is the list they created:

1. Animals
2. Lightning
3. Dinosaurs
4. Tigers
5. Sea Lions
6. Water
7. Eyes
8. Nail Polish
9. Sushi 
10. Makeup

And my personal favorite because it seems so un first-grade like...

High Heels!

In the end, high heels didn't make the final cut but I'm sure that would have been an interesting exploration.  

Flip Video

Introducing Flip Video!

Have you heard about this product?

It is a tiny digital camcorder with a 'signature flip-out USB arm' that allows you to take pristine video with surprising ease.

Simply capture a moment and easily transfer it to any computer. No cords, no wires, no fuss.  

Amazing!

The technology is getting better all the time.

This product is new to me as well.  Lauren has one that she has been using and I saw that our school just got a delivery of several more.  

I find the idea of these little gems especially intriguing at the moment because I am currently videotaping my students as they read.  Over the years I have come to realize that doing a running record and miscue analysis with Deaf or hard of hearing students becomes easier if you can videotape it and analyze it at a later sitting.  

The Flip Video recorders are changing the landscape.  Now teachers can tap into new areas of documentation.  We can easily record and share daily happening, trips, reading and writing celebrations, use it as a teaching tool to show our students how they read or interact, improve our own practices through self reflection by watching ourselves at work and honor our students in countless unique ways.

I can't wait to experiment with it.  

As my nephew Randy would say "Yippee Skippie!"

Custard and Mustard

The colorful Coney Island adventure Custard and Mustard becomes available for purchase in May!

This is the second children's book collaboration by Maureen Sullivan and Alison Josephs to feature Carlos, the French Bulldog. In past posts I wrote about their first book, Ankle Soup, as well as sharing our class experience during a recent visit to Alison's Chelsea art studio.

Several days after our trip, Alison contacted me to ask if I would be interested in writing a short passage for the back cover of the book.

"Would I?!"

That weekend I sent her a 'short' blurb which was immediately posted on their website. And today I saw that they have added a picture of the back cover of the book as well.

Sure enough, there are my words in the bottom left hand corner.

Of course now this means that everyone in my family is going to get a copy of this book for Christmas or birthdays or whatever. I am sure to post more on this after the book launch on May 14th. But for now...

Color me excited!