Summer Reading Advice to Avoid the Summer Slide

Summer Reading: Why It Matters Thanks to a few tips from the National Summer Learning Association summer reading can be a bit less stressful and a lot more effective. If there is one tip I inferred from looking at their 2009 Research Brief, “How to Make Summer Reading Effective” it is this. If you want to increase

Hindsight is 20/20

By Sarah Vander Schaaff Sitting in the examining room during my eight-year-old daughter’s recent visit to the optometrist, I had a rare insight into how she sees the world. For the most part, it seemed, as I looked at the chart she viewed, “D’s” looked liked “O’s”. In fact, anytime a letter was difficult for

Learn a Poem: Own Great Art

By Sarah Maraniss Vander Schaaff “To know a poem by heart is to own a great work of art forever.” That’s what England’s Education Secretary Michael Gove said last month when promoting his country’s new competition, “Poetry by Heart,” according to a story in England’s Telegraph. The country is investing a half million pounds in