Increase Confidence in Reading (3:42)

How do you fix a car motor? Where is Timbuktu? Do Bees sleep? You can learn a lot just by reading. But what if you lack confidence in your reading skills? A lot of things you’re dying to know, might seem far out of reach. Dawan Coombs teaches Reading Pedagogy in the BYU English Department. She talks with Rachel now about how our perception of ourselves as readers can affect our desire to read, no matter what our age. Coombs especially wants children to get beyond these self-defeating perceptions.  She comes equipped with valuable ideas to help us change their outlook. Dawan Coombs is an assistant professor of English at Brigham Young University where she teaches in the English teaching program, specializing in reading pedagogy. Her research examines the role of identity in the struggles of adolescent readers and seeks to identify best classroom practices in support of these students.

An Author’s Favorites (14:41)

Up next on Worlds Awaiting - Rachel welcomes young reader and teen author, Wendelin Van Draanen, and asks her to name some of her favorites among the books she has written, and why they’re her favorites. Van Draanen has written more than thirty novels for young readers including: the Sammy Keyes mystery series (recipient of the Edgar Award), and Flipped (which became a Warner Brothers feature film in 2010). Other titles include The Secret Life of Lincoln Jones and The Running Dream, and, two other series: The Shredderman and The Gecko & Sticky. A high school classroom teacher for fifteen years, Wendelin is now a fulltime writer.

Poetry (26:48)

We finish up the show with two poems – first, Answer to a Child’s Question by Samuel Taylor Coleridge read by Hannah Colvin, then, Bed in Summer by Robert Louis Stevenson read by Garret Rushforth.