Did you know that many children as well as adults cannot read? Statistics show that if they have the resources they need that reading can be enhanced. For my senior project I plan to do an extensive book drive for educators to assist children as well as adults still in school learn to read by providing proper books for daycares, elementary schools and adult learning centers to use. After receiving authorization from the following facilities, I will set up boxes and bins at places such as Publix, different public schools, and my parent’s work. In order to spread the word of my project, I will make posters and advertisements to station at local businesses. I will aim to get in contact with a local radio station and see if they can advertise where listeners can contribute books to my cause.
Furthermore, my plan is to have my book drive around the end of my junior year or during the summer. I think having my book drive during the summer would be best because school has just finished and people have time to read and can donate surplus books. My project should be completely finished by the beginning of my senior year of 2011 since I will be presenting in April. My mother has offered to donate many of the books she and her coworkers read at the hospital. I am very appreciative of their generosity since they read so much. I should obtain plenty of books to donate.
I estimate that this project will take from March 2010 to August 2010. During the month of March I will be getting my proposal together and putting all the research I possibly can into this project. April will include acquiring and decorating up to at least five boxes and/or bins for my donated books. The months of May to June will consist of me calling up and visiting variou...
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"Less Reading in the United States (The World Almanac)." The World Almanac. Web. 22 Mar. 2010. .
"State and County Literacy Estimates - Overview." National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Home Page, a Part of the U.S. Department of Education. Web. 22 Mar. 2010. .
"Reading, Literacy & Education Statistics - The Literacy Company." Speed Reading, Reading Software - Improve Your Reading Speed, Comprehension and Recall - The Literacy Company. Web. 19 May 2010. .
Fort Morgan is a small town community with a small population. This means that it easy for community members to bond and know each other. One way that the people could bond is through books. More specifically, the One City One Book program. The One City One Book program is a way for the community to get together through discussions of a piece of literacy. The book that would be a good option to use is Enrique’s Journey because it is a nonfiction piece of work that has many lessons to teach people, and it is all through a story of a young boy’s journey. This program would benefit Fort Morgan with Enrique’s Journey because it enlightens the people of the community about the hardships other people have that are not in America, it is an educational
X, Malcolm. "Learning to Read." Rereading America. 9th ed. Boston/NewYork: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2013. 189-97. Print.
Did you know that 81% of Americans feel they have a book in them? (Epstein par. 1).
Reading is on the decline and our reading skills are declining right along with the amount of reading we do. This is happening right across the board through both genders, all age groups and education levels, people are busy and they just do not have time to read books that they are not required to read for school or work. There are serious consequences to this neglect of reading that will continue to worsen if ignored. We need to take notice of what is happening to our culture and stop this situation from continuing, we must act to correct these issues that we are faced with. These things are discussed in the essay “Staying Awake’’ by Ursula K. Le Guin who uses the NEA essays “To Read or Not to Read’’ and “Reading at Risk’’ to support her argument that there is a decline in the amount of time that we are spending on reading and our ability to understand what it is that we are reading.
...for Education Statistics. Long-Term Trends in Student Reading Performance. Jan. 1998. Web. 2 May 2009. .
Gomez, L. M., & Gomez, K. (2007). Reading for learning: Literacy supports for 21st-century work. Phi
Ellis, Karen. "READ OR GO TO JAILLiteracy and National Reading Statistics, Teaching Reading: Educational CyberPlayGround." Literacy and the National Reading Statistics, Prison Rates and Test Scores Found on the Educational CyberPlayGround. Educational Cyber Playground, n.d. Web. 18 Oct. 2015.
...ed by most, and how dyslexia can cause problems with reading comprehension. It also discussed ways that we can mitigate these problems for dyslexic people, but these skills can and should be used by all learners. Reading comprehension is a perishable skill, one that if you don’t work on increasing your reading ability by building your vocabulary, learn to read effectively, or using the correct reading strategies for the type of reading material being studied will diminish. Even with the largest vocabulary, if the words are not understood literacy cannot be achieved. Literacy is the key to comprehensive reading. It also gave some of the tools for reading and understanding different types of literature and how to get the important information out of each one. Edmund Burk said “To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting” (Gallagher, 2003, p. 11).
In “The Closing of the American Book,” published in the New York Times Magazine, Andrew Solomon argues about how the decline of literary reading is a crisis in national health, politics, and education. Solomon relates the decline of reading with the rise of electronic media. He believes that watching television and sitting in front of a computer or a video screen instead of reading can cause the human brain to turn off, and lead to loneliness and depression. He also argues that with the decrease of reading rates, there will no longer be weapons against “absolutism” and “terrorism,” leading to the United States political failure in these battles. The last point Solomon makes is that there is no purpose behind America being one of the most literate societies in history if people eradicate this literacy, and so he encourages everyone to help the society by increasing reading rates and making it a “mainstay of community.” Solomon tries to show the importance of reading in brain development and he encourages people to read more by emphasizing the crisis and dangers behind the declination of reading.
Literacy, or the capability to comprehend, translate, utilize, make, process, assess, and speak information connected with fluctuating settings and displayed in differing organizations, assumes an essential part in molding a young's persons trajectory in life. The ability to read speaks to a key factor of scholarly, social, and financial success (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). These abilities likewise speak to a fundamental segment to having a satisfying life and turning into an effective worker and overall person (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1999). Interestingly, recent studies have demonstrated that low reading skills lead to critical hindrances in monetary and social achievement. As stated by the National Center for Education Statistics, adults with lower levels of reading skills and literacy have a lower average salary. Another study evaluated that 17 to 18 percent of adults with "below average" literacy aptitudes earned less than $300 a week, though just 3 to 6 percent of adults with "proficient" reading abilities earned less than $300 a week (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998).
Lee, Edward Bok El Santo Americano. Backpack Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing 4th Ed.
To add some variety to traditional teaching and learning strategies, a teacher might design an independent project where students work in teams and focus collaboratively on a single novel from the twentieth century. Each team would read a selected book and work together to create artifacts that would be shared with the other teams. Through collaborative work and sharing, students would be able to grasp the concepts and connections of several works of literature. The project outlined in section 5 will target twentieth century literature.
For my community involvement project, I volunteered at Memminger Elementary School for a program called “Reading Partners.” The program focuses on helping children build strong literacy skills to carry with them into their academic careers. It requires the tutor to read to the student that has been assigned, and in turn, the student reads to the tutor. The program assists in teaching the students valuable reading skills. Being able to read is critical to a child’s educational success.
“The single most important activity for building knowledge for their eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children,” a report from 1985 by the commission
Wise (2014), discusses that within the twenty first century in which the efficient completion of tasks is essential, speed reading is extremely advantageous. Not only does speed reading allow for the quicker acquisition of knowledge, it has shown to influence the brains functionality. Thus, one displays enhanced memory abilities, a higher level of attention and focus as well as a heightened problem solving ability (Wise, 2014). Despite the advantages of an increased reading speed, there is a large and significant disadvantage (Bell, 2001). The danger of developing a rapid reading rate, is that one’s level of comprehension is severely compromised. Therefore, a speed reader would not acquire an adequate amount of information when reading swiftly. It is possible that this disadvantage will have a detrimental effect on the precise completion of various academic and recreational tasks (Bell,