An interview with Jordan Page- An early childhood instructor advises us about play & best practices in early childhood classrooms. Interview conducted by Dr. Sam Bommarito

As I was preparing for the Young Years Conference in Missouri (that’s two weeks away!) I talked to many of my friends and colleagues about best practices in early childhood settings and the role using play as a teaching tool should have in those settings. One of the folks I talked to was Jordan Page. She is an adjunct instructor at the University of South Carolina and a supervisor to pre-service elementary teachers. Because she had so much great information to share, I wanted to interview her, and she agreed.  In this interview, Jordan uses her extensive knowledge of early literacy to help her students understand the research and put that research into practice. She has a knack for giving lots of practical tips in the process. Here is a little more information about Jordan.

These are highlights from the interview. In case you want to jump to a particular topic, the highlights are time-stamped.

HERE IS A LINK TO THE VIDEO:

Here are the books Jordan recommends for early childhood teachers.

: 

Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul

Kids 1st from Day 1: A Teacher’s Guide to Today’s Classroom

Purposeful Play

Dr. Sam’s reflections & his schedule in the next few weeks:

I’ll present at the Write to Learn Conference in Jefferson City, Mo, next week. The week after, I’m presenting at the Young Years Conference held at Tan-Tar-A. I’m encouraging folks I’m presenting to at that conference to look at this interview in advance- lots of valuable information and teaching tips. I’d also recommend my readers of the blog consider all that Jordan has said. If we are to follow the research- that means making sure the instruction for our youngest children fits their age and stage. Specifically, that means that the move by some to exclude play as a major teaching tool for our youngest children does not consider all the research. Next week I will interview Jan Richardson about her book The Next Step Forward in Guided Reading. That’s one you won’t want to miss. Until then-

Happy Reading and Writing.

Dr. Sam Bommarito (aka, the guy in the middle taking flak from all sides)

Copyright 2023 by Dr. Sam Bommarito. Views/interpretations expressed here are solely this author’s view and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other person or organization.

P.S. If you found the blog through Facebook or Twitter, please consider following it to ensure you won’t miss it.  Use the “follow” entry on the sidebar of the blog.

Here is a complete list of the speakers at the conference:

Keynotes: Josh Varner, Ron Shuali, Dr. Adolph Brown, Eric Litwin and Jim Gill.

Featured: Jill Molli, Sharron Krull, Dr. Sam Bommarito, Vladimir Sainte and Ernesto Rodriguez.

An interview with Eric Litwin about his upcoming keynote at the Young Years Conference. He’ll be talking about Early Literacy Optimization. Interview conducted by Dr. Sam Bommarito

I interviewed Eric Litwin about his upcoming appearance at the Conference on the Young Years (CYY), held on March 9 – 11, 2023, at the Tan-Tar-A Conference Center in Osage Beach, Missouri. This year the conference is celebrating its 50th year!   Osage beach Missouri is centrally located and easy to get to. Eric is scheduled to be the Keynote Speaker on March 10^th.

This interview was an amazing experience for me. That is because I first met Eric at an all-day workshop he did at the Tan-Tar-A Conference Center several years back. So, meeting him again at Tan-Tar-A brings things to a full circle. In the years since we first met, we have become good friends. It is amazing to share ideas about literacy, especially early literacy, with a world-renowned figure like Eric. His songs have brought joy to tens of thousands of children, and his materials have been a source of good teaching for many teachers- myself included. In this interview, Eric talked about what he will say during his keynote. It is all about optimizing early literacy instruction. His work to do that centers around the acronym HELPFUL. Here is a chart from his conference handout that helps to explain that acronym:

Eric believes literacy instruction can be optimized by immersing children in all the elements of HELPFUL. This is done throughout the entire school day. During the interview, he gives many examples of what that looks like in practice. He even shows how a couple of his most popular songs can be used to optimize instruction. Besides children’s books, Eric has also authored a professional development book. The book is entitled The Power of Joyful Reading. It is a book for both teachers and parents. In the book, he and his co-author, Dr. Gina Pepin, make a compelling, research-based case for parents and teachers to encourage students to want to read. He talks about how we can use immersion and play throughout the day to help children raise their test scores and become lifelong readers.

These are highlights from the interview. In case you want to jump to a particular topic, the highlights are time-stamped.

HERE IS A LINK TO THE VIDEO:

Here are links to some of Eric’s Books.

The Power of Joyful Reading: LINK 

The Poop Song: LINK  

You’ll also want to visit Eric’s website. There are free downloads, links to videos of him singing some of his favorite songs, or links to buy one of his many books.

https://www.ericlitwin.com/

Link to the CYY conference. (Registration closes February 22nd, so don’t delay!)

 LINK

Here is a complete list of the speakers at the conference:

Keynotes: Josh Varner, Ron Shuali, Dr. Adolph Brown, Eric Litwin and Jim Gill.

Featured: Jill Molli, Sharron Krull, Dr. Sam Bommarito, Vladimir Sainte and Ernesto Rodriguez.

NEXT WEEK:

I’ll be talking to Jordan Page, founder of Page-by-Page Literacy. Jordan has extensive teaching experience and is currently an adjunct at the University of South Carolina. She supervises early childhood teachers as they take their practicum. In the interview, she gives a lot of nuts-and-bolts advice on how to include play in your teaching routines while providing direct instruction to early childhood students. Jordan makes a compelling case for play. She gives advice on how to sell the idea of play to administrators and supervisors. She also makes a couple of recommendations about good professional development books for preservice teachers. All in all, her interview provides the perfect segway into topics covered at the Young Years conference. As I mentioned last week, Eric Litwin will be the keynote for that conference. I’ll be presenting two sessions there as well. Registration is closed for this year’s conference, but be sure to put it on your radar for future years.

Happy Reading and Writing.

Dr. Sam Bommarito (aka, the guy in the middle taking flak from all sides)

Copyright 2023 by Dr. Sam Bommarito. Views/interpretations expressed here are solely the view of this author and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other person or organization.

Several upcoming events in Missouri feature literacy leaders like Nic Stone, Julius Anthony and Eric Litwin. Please have a look! By Dr. Sam Bommarito

As a lifetime resident of the state of Missouri and a member of that state’s local and national ILA groups, I am proud to announce some great events are coming up in Missouri. Let me tell you about some of them.

First, there is a FREE event featuring Nic Stone. It will be in person and held in St. Louis, Missouri. But you can also access a live broadcast of this event via the internet. Booksource is providing that live broadcast. The event will be held 6-7 pm CST on February 16^th. The speakers will talk about the transformational power of diverse and inclusive classroom literature. Here is the in-person registration LINK. If you cannot attend the face-to-face event,  here is a link to register for the live broadcast LINK. Further information is below.

Second, our state’s ILA organization is co-sponsoring a face-to-face conference in Columbia, Mo. The name of that conference is Write to Learn. For the first time in its history, that conference is “sold out.” Guess we’ll have to move to a larger venue next year. What a great problem to have!!!

I still want you to know about it. I will be presenting a session at that conference about finding common ground. I will also be honored to introduce David Harrison as he receives the 2023 Celebrate Literacy Award from MLA (Missouri Literacy Association). Julius Anthony will also be receiving that same award, accepting it on behalf of the St. Louis Black Authors. By the way, Julius will become the president of the Missouri Literacy Association next year. He just opened the 10^th site for his groundbreaking Believe project at the Woodland School in Jennings, Missouri. In the small world department, Woodland is the school where I spent 18 years as a Title 1 teacher and staff developer in its award-winning Title 1 program. Please read all about the wonderful work the Believe project is doing at Woodland and its other nine sites in the St. Louis region: website LINK, and Facebook LINK. The Believe project is reshaping the literacy world in the St. Louis region. I hope that it will eventually become a model for nationwide literacy programs. Here is more information about the award presentations at Write to Learn.

Another event in Missouri is the CYY’s 50^th Anniversary Celebration: Honoring the Past, Celebrating the Present, Embracing the Future.   The Young Year’s conference will be held March 9 –11, 2023, at the Tan-Tar-A Conference Center in Osage Beach, Missouri. The Young Year’s conference is pulling out all the stops to make the 50^th-anniversary event something extra special. Eric Litwin will be keynoting the conference. I will be presenting on the topic of Singing Our Way into Fluency. Both those things will happen on Friday, March 10th. As I mentioned previously, I will be interviewing Eric next week about his keynote address and other literacy activities. That interview will be posted a week from today. Here is a link to the CYY website LINK. Registration will close soon, so please don’t wait! This face-to-face event will be held at the centrally located Tan Tara Convention Center in Missouri. We get participants from all around the country at this event. Here is a link to Eric’s website where you can find out about his many books and resources)  LINK.

 Hope to see you all at the CYY 50^th anniversary event !!!

So, there is a lot going on in Missouri. I hope you can come to one or more of these literacy events. I will “see” you next week when I interview Eric. I am also doing follow-up blogs about my presentation at the Pioneer Valley Books webinar sometime soon. In the meantime:

HAPPY READING AND WRITING!

Dr. Sam Bommarito, aka the centrist who, uses ideas from all sides to inform his teaching.

Copyright 2023 by Dr. Sam Bommarito. Views/interpretations expressed here are solely the author’s view and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other person or organization.

P.S. If you found the blog through Facebook or Twitter, please consider following it to ensure you won’t miss future posts. Please use the “follow” entry on the sidebar of the blog.

Andrew Davis, anthology Editor of the book Dyslexia: Developing the Debate, talks about the debate over the term Dyslexia: An interview conducted by Dr. Sam Bommarito

In this interview Andrew Davis, the Anthology Editor of the book Dyslexia: Developing the Debate talks about this book and the lively debate between authors Julian Elliott and Rod Nicolson concerning the nature of Dyslexia. These excerpts from the book will give my readers some idea of the exchange between the two authors and what they will find in the book.  

First this from page one, written by Andrew Davis whose role was to referee the lively exchanges in this book.

Now this from Nicholson on page 113:

Nicholson goes on to summarize what he says are the areas of agreement and disagreement between himself and Elliot in this chart page 120 of the book.

In addition to talking about this book, Andrew also talks about a variety of things, including his recently published Young Adult Science Fiction book Neuralnet’s Children.

Here is Andrew’s Biography:

Dr. Andrew Davis is a former primary teacher who lectured in philosophy of education and mathematics education in both Cambridge and Durham Universities. At Durham University, he directed the PGCE Primary course and the primary mathematics provision. He has taught students of all ages from 3 to 93. Among other things, he has published academic books and articles, textbooks, newspaper articles, magazine series, short stories for children and computer software. His research interests include educational assessment and the teaching of reading. A few years ago, there was widespread media coverage of his short book To Read or not to Read: Decoding Synthetic Phonics. Neuralnet’s Children is his first novel.

Here are the talking points covered in Andrew’s YouTube interview. They are time-stamped to help you locate the topics of most interest.

Andrew’s Books

“Dyslexia: Developing the Debate’ – Elliott, Nicolson and Davis

https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/search/?q=Dyslexia%3A%20Developing%20the%20Debate

“To read or not to read: decoding synthetic phonics”. Free download from

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/2048-416X.2013.12000.x

“A Critique of Pure Teaching Methods and the Case of Synthetic Phonics”

https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/critique-of-pure-teaching-methods-and-the-case-of-synthetic-phonics-9781350110946/

And my Young Adult Science Fiction “Neuralnet’s Children” published June 2022

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/neuralnets-children-andrew-davis/1141336258

Reflections about Andrew’s book. As indicated in the biography, Andrew’s book caused quite a stir when it was published in 2016. It provides an in-depth look at the issues surrounding the use of the term Dyslexia as a diagnosis. It takes care to look at all sides of this issue. My take is as follows: on the one hand, there is no question that Dyslexia is real; it exists. On the other hand, there are children with reading difficulties who are not Dyslexic. Those children will not necessarily benefit from the kind of instruction that benefits those with Dyslexia. There is a real need for careful study of who those children are and for more reliable screening instruments for Dyslexia that differentiate in a way that allows us to identify those children. Otherwise, we run the risk of wasting a large number of resources by giving some children instruction that doesn’t really fit their needs. My mantra remains to use ALL the research and help ALL the children as we move forward with improving our literacy instruction.

UPCOMING ACTIVITIES FOR DR. SAM

I will have a busy time in the next month or so. I’ll be interviewing Jordan G. Page, Elementary Literacy Consultant and founder of Page-by-Page Literacy LLC.  She will be talking about her work with younger readers. I will also be interviewing Eric Litwin, a well-known children’s author and co-author of the book The Power of Joyful Reading LINK. In addition, I also have upcoming presentations at Write to Learn LINK, Missouri Early Childhood Conference LINK, and I’ll be doing a webinar for Pioneer Books LINK. Busy times!

Copyright 2023 by Dr. Sam Bommarito. Views/interpretations expressed here are solely the author’s view and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other person or organization.

PS If you found the blog through Facebook or Twitter, please consider following it to ensure you won’t miss future posts. Use the “follow” entry on the sidebar of the blog.

PPS Interested in presentations, webinars, or class visits, please e-mail me at bommaritosam@yahoo.com