One Page At a Time Podcast

Get some ideas for how you can improve your traveling by using books. This week we are joined by One Page at a Time co-host, Amanda Fristrom! Amanda is probably among one of the more well-traveled people out there, having visited 6 continents, 63 countries and 49 of the 50 United States. She has many talents, such as possessing a vast knowledge of spices and the ability to design a whole line of handmade toys centered around camels. She chatted with us about the role books have played in her travels all over the world, both for herself as well as her kiddos.

In this episode we talk about:

1. We dive on in with Amanda’s tips for using books in the prep and lead-up to travels. They have a book of all the world flags that they use to show their kids the flags of the countries they are visiting. They can then use this knowledge to help kids connect with the place they are visiting, as they find flags while they are out and about. Bonus: finding flags can also be used as a distraction for antsy kids!

2. Books can also be used to introduce kids to a new language or landmarks they will be exposed to when they are in the new location. There are plenty of books with these things geared towards kids; Amanda shared the ones her family uses. 

3. One more tip for the lead-up to trips, Amanda has her kids go on a “screen freeze” for up to two weeks before leaving for a trip, to get everyone ready and excited for screen time while travelling.

4. During the actual traveling to the new destination, Amanda has Kindle Fire’s for her kids that she loads with books that can be read off-line and a couple reading apps (details below). Kindle has versions of books that are interactive; the books are read to them, the kids can turn the pages and interact with elements on the pages. Amanda has learned through experience that e-books work best for the actual travel time, although she does pack some “emergency” books in a carry-on to use if needed (low battery on devices, long delays, etc).

5. For herself, Amanda likes to have a physical book, so she has found a genre that works well for her for travelling (autobiographies). Everyone’s travel books will be different depending on your tastes and needs, but when travelling with kids you will most likely need a type of book that you enjoy, but isn’t too engrossing, so won’t mind getting interrupted while reading it (kids needing things, pausing to enjoy scenery, etc.).

6. Book Crossing is a fun website that lets you leave a book in a location with a code printed from the website and then you can track if someone finds and takes your book to a new place!

7. Eventually you will make it to your destination and books can still play a part! Amanda has found that keeping her kids’ bedtime routine as close to what they do at home makes a huge difference in their travels. Books play a big part in their bedtime routine, so she keeps that up while travelling. She either uses the books she brought in her “emergency” supply, borrows from people if visiting family or friends, or sometimes finds new books in stores while travelling. 

8. Travelling can be scary and stressful to kids, with an overload of new places and experience. Reading to them is one way to calm them and bring them back to a comfortable and familiar thing. The same can apply to you, as well- taking some time to read your own book can help you fight jet lag, decompress and settle down. 

9. If travelling to visit family, reading together- even older kids reading to the younger ones- will give family members that your children may not get to see as often that bonding time and is a wonderful way to bring the family together. 

This week we are joined by Sarah Wood, the teacher that every parent hopes that their child will get each year. She has taught various grades of elementary (primary) school for the past twelve years (she is on lucky year 13 of teaching!) and in her spare time you can find her in the dance studio and hanging out with her awesome two-year-old son. Sarah is passionate about books and uses them in all sorts of ways in her classroom and with her own son. She was gracious enough to spend some of her precious non-teaching time to chat with us about what she sees from our kids in her classroom and how reading plays a role in that!

In this episode we talk about:

1. Teachers can, in general, tell which kids read and are being read to at home. They look forward to going to the school library, can talk about their favorite book or use character names or titles in conversations and often read at a slightly higher reading level. On the flip side, it is harder to find books for kids who do not read at home that they like to read or listen to and are easily distracted during reading times at school. Sarah noted that she only applies these observations to typically developing children, taking out, for instance, children who are still learning English, etc.

2. We asked Sarah what she wished she could sit down and tell the parents of all her students and she told us that, no matter their age, all children want to be read to! The minute she picks up a book in her class, who basically never stop talking, you can hear a pin drop.

3. Sarah uses different kinds of books all the time in her classroom. When teaching math in first and second grade, for example, she would find a picture book with examples of symmetry and use the examples to visually show that example. With her current class of fifth-graders one of the reading rotations that she does is reading with a buddy- reading out loud to each other- and they love it!

4. We chatted about some great ideas of how to use those same principles at home with our kids! There is an instagram account that Sarah loves and uses called The Book Report, which is run by a former teacher, now stay at home mom, who uses books all the time at home with her kids. She also loves a website called Reading Rockets, which has resources and videos with suggestions on all sorts of things, like, how do you read non-fiction books at home (links to both of these are below). Her best suggestion, however, is to simply find something that your child is interested in, gather books about that subject and then go out in the world and connect those things. Read books about fire trucks and then go to a fire station and see read fire trucks. Find books about rocks and minerals and then go dig around your backyard and see what kinds of rocks you can find! She did share the tip to find the book first and then plan the activity, because it does not always come together when you try and do it the other way around.

5. Sarah herself has a two-year-old son and she has been exploring the world of reading as a parent as opposed to a teacher. It is just as important to her at home, however, as it is in her classroom. She even used one of her son’s favorite books, Vroom Vroom Garbage Truck, in her fifth-grade class when teaching about onomatopoeia! 

We are so grateful to Sarah for taking the time to talk with us! More information about what we chatted about today can be found in the following places:

Instagram references:

@the.reading.report

Websites mentioned:

Reading Rockets

https://www.readingrockets.org

We are joined this week by the hosts of the delightful podcast, Family Looking Up, Camille, Beth and Andrea! Their podcast, now in its third year, explores all aspects of motherhood, something that they know plenty about themselves with a gaggle of children distributed among the three of them. They joined us to share some of the wisdom they have gained through the years, reading, and more specifically finding books to read, with their kids of all ages.

In this episode we talk about:

1. These three women are all very well-read, but their styles, their tastes, their methods and their searching habits differ, so we spent some time chatting about how they find books for themselves!

2. Recommendations. Firstly, from friends. Find which friends you have similar tastes and opinions about books with and they will be a rich source of book suggestions. Then, once you find your golden source of recommendations, keep track of the suggestions you get somehow!

3. Goodreads. This is a well-known site to many, but if you have not checked it out yet, take a look! It is a website and an app and it has reviews of most any book you could be curious about.

4. How do all these ladies do their reading? It depends! One likes to mix it up with hard copies and e-books on her phone while another almost exclusively listens to audio books. Find what works for you!

5. Saying to find the friends who share your taste in books is all find a good, but how do you go about that in real life? Just start talking about it! Ask anyone for recommendations and over time you will find the ones who 

6. Finding audiobooks. How? Where? For those of us lucky enough to live in a country where they are available, the apps Overdrive and Libby are wonderful resources. They are where your local public library’s e-book and audio book collections live. You can check books out right there on the app! The downside of these apps are that you are limited as to how many books you can check out and have on hold and the more popular books will be on hold with longer waits. Audible is a service through Amazon that will give you instant access to the books you want (no waits!), but it costs. Once again, all the ladies have different ways of making these services work best for them and their families. 

7. Along with their own reading habits, these women are also doing their best to raise their kids as readers. They have found several sources that have helped them along the way. As their kids read more, they cannot keep up and read every book their kids are reading, so they rely on research from Google or sites like Common Sense Media and Goodreads to be informed about what their kids are reading.

8. As we have talked about before, and will continue to talk about on our podcast, do not underestimate the listening level of your children! It will broaden their horizons and help them get over fear of bigger books and other forms of literature.

These lovely ladies each left us with a great idea of how to get started on putting these great ideas into practice this week. Andrea invited us to let our children have a say in what they are reading (hashtag let them read!). Beth suggested rediscovering the joy of reading making it fun with things like movie parties or cousin/friend kid book clubs. Camille invited us as adults to branch out from our norm and try something we wouldn’t normally pick or use a different book format than you usually do. There are some surprises waiting out there for us if we look in different places!

We are so grateful to Camille, Beth and Andrea for taking the time to talk with us!

This week we wanted to give you all a chance to get to know us a little better and we are starting with One Page at a Time co-host Jill Berrett Given! Jill is life-long bookwork, advocate for local libraries, has a masters degree in Library Science and is the mother of three children ages 6, 4 and 1.5. 

In this episode we talk about:

1. Costumes! Jill’s family are all big Halloween enthusiasts. So much so that they plan their theme (because of course they do group costumes) and costumes all year long! She chats about their process of choosing and making their costumes each year.

2. We dive right in and chat about some books with great costume options in them to get your creative juices flowing! Why books? They are such a great, visual sources of inspiration, that’s why!

3. Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson. Jill and Amanda even take a trip down memory lane and chat about a sewing a stuffed Hobbes for each of our first borns (pattern available here: https://www.instructables.com/id/Stuffed-Hobbes-with-pattern/)

4. Dragons love Tacos by Adam Rubin. Dress your whole hoard up as dragons, or, if you have one who isn’t feeling the dragon vibes, then they can be the taco!

5. We pause our book list to discuss how we feel about dressing up as princesses for a book character day. Hey, if a princess book gets your child excited about books, then we say go for it!

6. Eloise by Kay Thompson. While Jill may spend a year planning and sewing their costumes, if you are looking for something less...involved, this little girl is a great choice! Her black skirt, white blouse, knee socks and red bow can be pulled together with easily found pieces that can even be used again after the dress-up event! Bonus!

7. Put Me in the Zoo by Robert Lopshire. Jill admits that the amazing yellow dress worn by the little girl in this book is a costume she dreams about how she would draft and sew someday!

8. Mr. Panda series by Steve Antony. Jill was gracious enough to give everyone a sneak “peek” at her family’s costumes for this Halloween: black and white animals inspired by Mr. Panda and all his black-and-white animal pals!

Jill left us with a great idea of how to get started on putting these great ideas into practice this week. She suggested that if you don’t know where to start when putting together a book-inspired costume, because it is such a visual subject, start by just looking at the books we talked about today! Hopefully the wonderful illustrations and endearing stories in each and every one of them will spark an idea for you!

We had so much fun chatting with each other and hopefully letting everyone get to know us a little bit better! If you are curious about Jill’s epic Halloween sewing adventures, she has an Instagram account for her creative pursuits, which can be found at:

Instagram: @jillybugscreates

Additional books we mentioned:

Chikka Chikka Boom Boom by Bill Martin, Jr. 

Where’s Waldo by Martin Handford

We are joined this week by behavior analyst, Sydnie Brinkerhoff. She is a world traveler, fellow book-lover and heart-warming optimist. Children of all ages adore her, which comes in very handy in her professional world. She has degrees in Communications and Special Education, emphasizing in Verbal Behavior. If you aren’t sure what most of that means, you are in good company! We weren’t quite sure about it all ourselves, which is why we asked Sydnie to come chat with and help us out!

In this episode we talk about:

1. What verbal behavior even is! A short and sweet definition is that verbal behavior is different forms of communication. Sounds, gestures, sign language, words, etc.

2. Verbal behavior is separated into six different categories, or verbal operants. Sydnie breaks down exactly what those six operants are and gives examples of them.

3. While most kids will learn how to communicate just fine without us as parents and caregivers understanding what these operants are, understanding them will give us the power to help our children in a new way. “In typically developing children these different operants will develop on their own. They don’t need any extra work, you don’t have to understand [it] for these operants to develop. ...But if you do understand it you can be a big help.” 

4. Books are a great way to put this knowledge to work! You can identify which operants you want to work on with your child and use both the text and pictures (Sydnie gives us permission to go off-text and not just read the story, gasp!) to focus on those operants.

5. Knowing the different operants and when they start to develop in a typical child can also help you read to kids of all ages- especially newborns and small babies, which many people wonder about. You want to start the habit of reading to them as early as possible, but how do you read to a baby who does not understand the story? You can look at which operant the baby is developing then and use the book to emphasize it!

6. Sydnie created a chart for all of us to use (shout out to all our fellow visual learners!) that identifies the six operants, what they are, an example of them, as well as an example of how to use them when reading a book with a child. It is available to download for all who subscribe on our website! 

Sydnie left us with a great idea of how to get started on putting these great ideas into practice this week. She invited us to remember that environment has a huge effect on children’s development of language and we all have the power to help grow their language, even with something as simple as reading a book with them. So, everyone, go use your power this week! 

We are so grateful to Sydnie for taking the time to talk with us! More information about verbal behavior can be found in the following places:

Websites: Carbonne clinic http://carboneclinic.com

Books we mentioned:

We are joined this week by author Linda Liukas, who created a wonderful series of children’s books called Hello Ruby. Linda got the idea for her books while learning computer programming herself and describes her books as “the world’s most whimsical way to learn about technology, computing and coding.” Linda also founded Rails Girls http://railsgirls.com, which organizes workshops to teach the basics of programming to girls and women. She joined us to talk about Ruby, her books and a brand-new YouTube series, Love Letters for Computers, that goes hand-in-hand with the Hello Ruby books.

In this episode we talk about:

1. Whimsicality! Linda and her Ruby books are proof that computer science and whimsical things are not mutually exclusive!

2. A universal desire to expose our kids to the technological world- her books have been translated into 28 different languages and are used by parents and teachers all over the world.

3. How Ruby came to be. While studying some “dull” (Linda’s words!) programming textbooks at Stanford University, Linda began doodling a young girl in her books, thinking about how a six-year-old girl would explain the concepts to her. Thus Ruby was “born!”

4. Exploring the idea that programming could be taught through stories rather than concepts. “I do feel that there is value in having these strong characters that...the children will memorize and remember as they grow older. Maybe they don’t actually make the connection of how they relate to the world of technology...but they have this strong emotional feeling that, ‘oh techonology is something that I can feel fearless and curious about; that I feel welcome to. I think that is what books can do far better than apps and other ways to teach.”

5. Ruby is joined by a whole cast of characters that were inspired by different aspects of computers, like Ruby herself (Ruby is a Japanese programming language). While you don’t need to know the inspiration behind each character to enjoy the story, there are plenty of easter eggs for parents and teachers familiar with the tech world to find on each page!

6. Even though our kids are growing up surrounded by technology and start using it proficiently at a very young age, there is great value in teaching them (and ourselves if we are not familiar with it) about what goes into creating these things. “Kids who know how to play games are consumers of technology, not creators. The fact that they can use apps does not mean that they have some magical understanding of...computer science.”

7. We as parents do not need to be an expert on the subject when introducing our kids to new information, we can be more of a “curator.”

8. Studies are showing that kids, especially girls as young as 5 and 6 are already developing self-limiting ideas about who can or can’t be a computer scientist.

9. Coding may be touted as a useful skill, but it can also be beautiful and interesting and “intensely creative.” Linda believes that we need more materials that show the “practicality of engineering meeting...the beauty of [the] arts…”

10. While it wasn’t their intended purpose, the Ruby books are being used more and more as a teaching tool in classrooms, so Linda has created a YouTube series, Love Letters for the Computer, intended as a resource for primary school teachers, with plans of a book to go along with it in the future.

Linda left us with a great idea of how to get started on putting these great ideas into practice this week. She invited us to check out the computer building activity https://www.helloruby.

We are joined this week by Lauren Tarshis to talk about her work with Scholastic’s Kids and Family Reading Report, specifically a section they call the “Decline by 9,” which is a trend Scholastic’s Report has noted where children’s interest in reading sharply drops around age nine.

We are joined this week by Cyndi Giorgis, co-author of the latest edition of the acclaimed and respected book, The Read Aloud Handbook, originally written by Jim Trelease. She is also a former first grade teacher, school librarian, committee member for numerous children’s book awards such as the Caldecott, Newbery and more, author and publisher, and is passionate about reading aloud to audiences of children. She joined us to chat about The Read Aloud Handbook and shared many of the benefits that come with reading aloud to kids of all ages.

In this episode, we talk about:

1. How Cyndi became involved with The Read Aloud Handbook.

2. Benefits of reading aloud with kids. The main benefit Cyndi gave us was the bonding that occurs when you read to children. Additionally, reading aloud gives children access to a much larger vocabulary of words and facts than they would hear in their everyday life.

3. The benefits of reading aloud extend to kids of all ages- maybe even more so as they get older. Research shows that reading aloud to kids starts to drop off around age seven, but we need to remember that a child’s listening level is much higher than their reading ability, so if we stop reading to them as they get older, they are missing out on all of these books and stories they cannot read themselves.

4. Reading out loud to older children can be a way to start conversations about things we aren’t sure how to talk to them about.

5. There is a difference between kids reading to themselves and reading aloud to them. Reading aloud to them gives them access to stories that they may not be able to access on their own. By reading aloud, we are also able to share, or “bless” a book with them the book- it is a gift we give them.

6. What can families who do not already have the foundation of reading in their homes do? Kids need to see their parents reading. “Parents need to maybe rediscover themselves as readers.” Designate times in your day that you will read aloud to them, such as at a meal time or bedtime. Even listening to an audiobook in the car with your kids gets you started in the right direction. If a child is reluctant, be patient and find the materials that they are excited about- be it poetry, graphic novels, nonfiction, pop-up books, etc.

7. Being read to by fathers and other men are an important part of the equation. With many teachers being women, it is more rare for kids to be read aloud to by men outside of their homes. Consequently, kids may not view reading as a thing that men do, which could affect them as they get older.

8. Included in The Read Aloud Handbook is what Cyndi calls a “treasure of books.” The first half is research, reading dos and dont;s, etc, but the second half is suggestions of great books to read aloud, separated into all different genres and reading levels. They are all great books and tested for reading aloud!

Cyndi left us with a great idea of how to get started on putting these great ideas into practice this week. She invited us to believe in the power of stories. When we read about someone like us, someone who inspires us or a place we don’t have access to, it can change our lives!

We are so grateful to Cyndi for taking the time to talk with us! More information about her and The Read Aloud Handbook can be found:

Instagram: @cyndigiorgis

Twitter: https://twitter.com/cyndigiorgis

Facebook: The Read-Aloud Handbook 

Website: https://www.cyndigiorgis.com

Jill and Amanda introduce ourselves and give you an insight into what is coming up on One Page at a Time.