Children's Literacy Round-Up: Groundhog Day Edition

Happy Groundhog Day! This week’s children’s literacy and reading news round-up, brought to you by Jen Robinson’s Book Page and Scrub-a-Dub-Tub, a Reading Tub blog, is now available at Scrub-a-Dub-Tub. Terry Doherty has assembled tons of great content about encouraging read-aloud; literacy-related activities; raising readers; literacy and reading programs and research; 21st century literacies; grants, sponsorships & donations; and other new resources.

My favorite item this week was a remark that Terry highlighted from a Washington Post article about how busy libraries around Washington, DC have been lately. Apparently 172 kids showed up for a recent storytime. I'm sure it was chaos for the poor librarians, but how great is it that so many parents are taking their toddlers in for storytime?

(Picture of my Dad reading to me.) I also wanted to share with you some other links to posts that people have written in response to my post from last week about encouraging read-aloud (a post that was in turn inspired by Terry's children's literacy round-up from last week - this is all connected). I don't have time to comment on or summarize all of the suggestions from these fabulous posts right now, but here are the links:

• Tif Talks Books
• Cheryl Rainfield
• My Friend Amy
• Reading Rumpus
• Charlotte's Library
• Eclectic Reader
• 4IQRead
• PaperTigers
• Scrub-A-Dub-Tub
• Others who linked to my post include: Joyful Days, Everybody Wins!, The Well-Read Child, and MotherReader.
• Special thanks to Karen from Mommy's Favorite Children's Books, who started discussions on parenting discussion boards here and here. Those discussions are filled with interesting questions and ideas, though I haven't had a chance to read through everything in detail.
• There are also tons and tons (more than 50) of great comments on my original post. If you have some time, please check out the fabulous suggestions and experiences that people have been sharing. Many thanks to everyone who has commented. (And if you've posted about this, and I missed it, just let me know).
• And finally, Deb Lund brought to my attention the Facebook cause Read to your Child. I have since recruited 20+ additional members to this cause, and some of them have in turn recruited additional members. The total number of members is up by more than 150 since Deb invited me to join (from 371 to 526). More important to me than the numbers, one real-world friend wrote to me to share her family's positive experience, after joining the cause, reading aloud with their older son (who can read on his own).

I can't even tell you how thrilled I am that this topic is taking off like wildfire, and that people are taking action. In a way, I picked a bad time for me to start the discussion, because I've had houseguests since right after I put up the original post, and I'm leaving shortly for a business trip. But in another way, it's been great, because every single time I check in with my email, there's some sort of response. Another comment on the original post, a new post that someone wrote, and email, a Facebook comment, etc. I am so heartened by the thought that we're all in this battle together. Thank you all!