Shannon Miller's World Read Aloud Day

One of my favorite events every year is LitWorld's World Read Aloud Day.  This year we are celebrating on February 1st, 2018.

Over the last eight years, I have read, celebrated, learned, connected and created with others around the world in honor of World Read Aloud Day and literacy.  

One of the best parts of World Read Aloud Day for me are the connections that libraries and school communities make with other children, teachers, librarians, authors, illustrators, and friends from around the world.  Whether it is listening to them read, reading a book together, or singing along to the words, the celebration of reading aloud is what we lift up on this day.

When I was in the Van Meter Library, we connected with several of our favorite authors over the years, including Seymour Simon, Tom Angelberger, Cece Bell, Erica Perl, Donna Gephart, Laurel Synder, Jesse Klausmeier, and many others.

We Skyped with our friends in Iowa, Georgia, Chicago, Florida, Philadelphia, New York, Texas, Connecticut, Australia, China, Oman and others around the world.

During one of our visits to a school in Florida this year, we will be having a little "Pig Party," including farm themed books and eBooks—and a visit with a special Iowa friend named Bacon, a pot-bellied pig.  

The Collaborative Google Doc

As you and your school community plan World Read Aloud Day, Andy Plemmons, Matthew Winner and myself have created a Google Document for all of us to start making plans with others around the world. This year we have done something that will be super helpful to all of you: there is now a Table of Contents for Time Zones, which will help when connecting and planning. Teachers and WRAD participants can click on the time zone that they want and the page will jump forward to the proper place in the Google Doc. Underneath a particular time zone, there is an area for users to add their information.

The World Read Aloud Day 2018 Google Doc can be found here.

Skype in the Classroom + Buncee

I also have a very special new project to share with you, from two of my favorite educational resources to use as a teacher and librarian, Buncee and Skype in the Classroom.

This year, Skype in the Classroom and Buncee are joining forces to celebrate World Read Aloud Day with a global literacy peace project for your library, classroom, and community.

 As Buncee's Teacher Librarian Advocate and a Skype Master Teacher, I couldn't be more excited to share this news and to tell you how you and your students can be part of this project too.

It is called the Skype + Buncee Literacy Project! It is our brand new Buncee Buddies project to kick off 2018. Students will be collaborating, creating and sharing poems with an answer to the question, How Do I Model Peace In My Community?

As shared on the project page on the Skype in the Classroom site:

Words have the power to change our world. Reading & writing have the power to build bridges, foster understanding, and spark ideas. For World Read Aloud Day 2018, Skype in the Classroom and Buncee are asking you to join classrooms from all around to celebrate literacy by coming together to read, write, and spread peace.

Go to the Skype + Buncee Literacy Project page to read all of the details and register to join.

We are already sharing on the #skypebunceebuddies hashtag on social media, and don't forget to use the official hashtag, #WorldReadAloudDay, in your posts too.  

Students' poems will be added to the Skype + Buncee Literacy Project Buncee Board, and I can't wait to read and share them too. You will find our Buncee Board here. 

Remember, be creative and have fun with this project.

LitWorld would love for us to connect with authors through Skype in the Classroom for World Read Aloud Day, and this project is now part of the wonderful ways we can connect using Skype.  

The sky is the limit and the possibilities to connect are endless. We will celebrate literacy while connecting and creating for World Read Aloud Day globally throughout the year with Buncee and Skype in the Classroom. 

Empower your students to share peace in the community and throughout the world in 2018 by being part of our project too! 

Have a wonderful time planning World Read Aloud Day, friends. I hope we get to connect too.

Shannon McClintock Miller is a teacher-librarian who serves as the Future Ready Librarians and Project Connect Spokesperson working with librarians, educators and students around the country, in person and online every day. She is Buncee's Teacher Librarian Advisor and Cantata Learning's Teacher Librarian Advocate. Shannon is the author of the award-winning The Library Voice blog and recently published her first four children’s books about library skills with Cantata Learning. And her most favorite thing: she is blessed mom and wife.  

Bridging Communities With the WRAD-ical Power of Tech

This year, World Read Aloud Day is on February 1st.

Thanks to a growing list of partners and sponsors, this global holiday has reached hundreds of thousands of kids and their parents and teachers in over 100 countries.

In 2018, the advent of technology in the classroom—seen as a novel innovation only a few years ago—has become commonplace in many schools, and it's changing the way we celebrate the joy of reading aloud in a big way.

Schedule a Read-Aloud With An Author in Your Classroom

This year, Skype in the Classroom has made it easier than ever to book a virtual author visit to a classroom anywhere on the planet through their website. Make your World Read Aloud Day truly memorable for your students by interacting with a real, live Children's Literature author.

Students in Brooklyn, New York celebrate World Read Aloud Day 2017 by donning their self-made Reading Crowns.

Coordinate with Other Educators And Bring Classrooms Together

Teachers and fans of World Read Aloud Day have banded together to create an expansive, community-run Google Doc, and it is being used to organize cooperative read-aloud events in celebration of the holiday. Introduce your students to a new classroom via the internet, read aloud to each other, ask each other questions, and empower your communities.

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Tools like video chat and community-built Google Docs have spurred World Read Aloud Day's growth, making it a truly worldwide celebration of community, humanity, storytelling, and joy.

For more information and useful resources, visit litworld.org/wrad.

A New Model of Collaboration: Partnership Coordinator Conference

Shooting stars to Mentor Mainor at the first-ever PCC.

LitWorld coordinated and hosted its first-ever Latin American Partnership Coordinator Conference at the beginning of October in Colombia, as part of our ongoing efforts to deepen the connection between partners and provide opportunities for learning across organizations. Currently, LitWorld has seven partnerships in Spanish-speaking Latin America: two in Colombia, two in Nicaragua, and one each in the Dominican Republic, Peru, and Honduras.  

The Partnership Coordinator Conference (PCC) served as a powerful tool to strengthen the LitWorld community. It provided training to the Partnership Coordinators and a mentor from each attending organization, a space for each partner to share their own work and expertise, and a forum where organizations could learn from one another’s experience.

Each day began with a unique community-building activity and was followed by a series of trainings. These included modules on the role of a Partnership Coordinator, key components of mentorship, setting goals as leaders and in programming, techniques to lead training workshops, using visual art as a storytelling tool, how to cultivate mentors as storytellers, techniques for reading aloud, and strategies for creating their own stories to supplement their program libraries. Each partner also had an hour scheduled during the week to share their organization’s work, expertise, and history, as well as a programming activity that could be shared across all organizations.

We received some amazing feedback from our coordinators that show the powerful, magical outcomes of the week:

“It was a wonderful meeting of learning, collaboration, fun, companionship, and shared dreams.”

“I would like to have this type of meeting more regularly since one can grow even more. Thanks for such a good and great opportunity, thanks on behalf of all those children who we help grow in a different world.”

“We are a stronger network of cooperative work, with new reasons to continue.”

“We learned that we are a network, that we can achieve many things if we are united, learned many tips for the organization, new strategies for reading aloud, group dynamics and how to develop story writing.”

“We learned that we are doing great work as an institution...from now on we feel more capable and have more ideas to continue our LitClub.”

We look forward to doing this conference again in the various regions in which we work in order to deepen institutional knowledge and build a stronger LitWorld community!

A Moment of Serious Joy

Story Summit at Nigeria Reads/YiSHDA

Joyce, Partnership Coordinator in Nigeria with Nigeria Reads/YiSHDA, shared a reflection from a LitClub Mentor training:

During the training/meeting, mentors shared their experiences with everyone and it was really motivating. Mentor Comfort expressed how being a LitClub mentor has helped her do things and speak out for her girls, the way she ordinarily would not do.

Reading Aloud -- A Special LitWorld Tradition

Dorothy Lee reads "Beekle."

We have a special tradition here at LitWorld. New members of our staff are warmly welcomed by gathering together to share readings chosen by the team. This week, at our Staff Meeting, our Executive Director Dorothy Lee read aloud a team favorite, "The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend." We also heard a passage from "The Little Prince," an excerpt from an article on the science of cooking, and a poem from Naomi Shihab Nye.

We chose readings that connected us to each other. Each reading is different and each reader makes it her own. A story might make us laugh, an article might teach us something new. We all felt the power of reading aloud. We felt the power of our work.

It was a poignant reminder, all together in our office, that we learn and grow from reading together, as a classroom, as a family, as a staff, as a community. 

LitWorld Becomes Famous in Cote d’Ivoire

Confident young readers at LitClub at Education and English for You.

Written by Toti Jean-Marc Yalé, Partnership Coordinator at Education and English for You, Cote d'Ivoire

Born in a poor family of seven children, my childhood was very difficult, especially because we did not have the resources to help me with my physical disability. 

At an early age, I left my parents’ home to move to another place where the primary school was a bit closer. When I came back home during the holidays, the best advice that my father gave me was to have courage--one of the 7 Strengths of the curriculum of LitWorld. This advice helped me a lot to overcome many challenges because I often had to walk at least five kilometers to go school despite my disability.

But I didn’t give up. I moved on to university and after my graduation there, I created an organization that gave me the privilege of working with LitWorld, one of the best organizations that is building a new generation of people throughout the world based on the 7 Strengths: Belonging that deals with the promotion of unity; Curiosity to incite the spirit of exploration and discovery; Friendship to promote the peace; Kindness to foster philanthropy in the world; Confidence to banish the fear; Courage to fight against the challenges; and Hope to guarantee the success.

These 7 Strengths are helping the kids of our community, especially the girls, and they are making the word “LitWorld” popular here. The kids talk about LitWorld at home and some of their parents have come to me wanting to know more about what we do. 

Beyond that, through the different LitClubs, LitWorld is building the great leaders of tomorrow. I have been astonished by the great work done by the LitClub members. At the end of each month, the U.S Embassy in Cote d’Ivoire organizes a program for children called Panel to celebrate the books being read by children. During the celebration of Martin Luther King Day where many schools were in attendance, our kids were the best and showed that their literacy skills are impressive. After reading the book at home, our LitClub members showed their reading comprehension--they did not use any paper to explain the content of the book. They read and also quoted the references precisely without making any mistakes. They thoughtfully responded to the other participants.

Afterwards, when many leaders of other local organizations approached me and expressed their desire to bring LitClub to their communities, I knew that the LitClubs were really making an impact. Thank you, LitWorld.
 

An Exciting Announcement About World Read Aloud Day 2018

We are thrilled to announce a special new collaboration with Scholastic for World Read Aloud Day, celebrating the Harry Potter stories.

World Read Aloud Day 2018 will take place on February 1 so that we can spread the pleasure of reading aloud alongside Harry Potter Book Night, when fans around the world celebrate J.K. Rowling's much-loved book series.

2018 will mark the 20th anniversary of the US publication of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, and we are so excited to celebrate the impact that Hogwarts and the Harry Potter stories continue to have on the way the whole world engages with reading.  Over the past 20 years, classrooms and families have enjoyed reading Harry Potter aloud and have shared a special bond around this ever popular series.

Please help us spread the word by joining the conversation on social media using #WorldReadAloudDay and be sure to sign-up for WRAD 2018. (If you have already registered once, you do not need to do it again! You’re all set.)

We'd love to hear from you. Contact us with any questions, concerns, or excitement!

World Read Aloud Day 2017