Posts Tagged ‘literacy’

Reading comix boosts vocabulary

Written on Thursday, April 8th, 2010 [permanent link]

Here’s a cute and personal take on the many studies that have shown comix boost the vocabulary and reading comprehension skills of young readers. (You know, like reading just about ANYTHING boosts vocabulary and reading comprehension skills!) This blog on NPR’s website falls apart at the end, as the writer strays from the vocabulary theme and gets into a bunch of obscure comic book themes that, well, OK, I GET, but they aren’t important to his main point.

PS – Interesting to me that he is almost exactly my age. I still remain devoted to Sesame Street and the teaching power of simple and bold ideas. Like comix!

Tags: Bentley Boyd, Chester the Crab, comic books, educational comics, literacy, reluctant readers, vocabulary
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Comics boost literacy (like any children's picture book does!)

Written on Sunday, November 15th, 2009 [permanent link]

The www.sciencedaily.com web site recently had a good overview of comix-and-literacy by Carol L. Tilley, a professor of library and information science at Illinois. Her analysis matches the points I try to get across to teachers and librarians and parents: that comics are just as sophisticated as other forms of literature, and children benefit from reading them at least as much as they do from reading other types of books.

If reading Dr. Seuss to kids at age 5 is good, then it’s good for that same kid to read Spider-Man at age 10. Comix shouldn’t be the only thing kids read, but if it’s the favorite form of reading for a child who would otherwise be playing a video game or watching TV, then let’s keep comix near him!

Why do we assume that reading a chapter book with no pictures is the highest form of literacy? A book without visual images does not look like the world I live in — a novel is actually an artificial construction, cutting off most of the information we use to navigate the real world (visuals, sound, interplay in conversation . . . ). In their own way, novels-without-pictures are as much an artificial environment as any video game — and can be as fun and as worthwhile to dive into as any video game, but why do we as a culture continue to assume that novels are superior to other forms of media?

Soon, articles like the one I’m linking to won’t appear because the category lines in children’s literature will have blurred so much. I try to blur that line in my author’s talks to students and in my teacher in-service training programs. I ask people to compare the page layout of a children’s book with pages from comix, and, like Tilley here, we can see the distinct comic book tools — frames, thought and speech bubbles, motion lines — being co-opted by children’s books, creating a hybrid format.

Here’s the whole article:
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091105121220.htm

Tags: Bentley Boyd, Chester Comix, Chester the Crab, comic book, literacy
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Help Chester Take a Test!!

Written on Thursday, February 26th, 2009 [permanent link]

Are you a teacher or librarian? Know a teacher or librarian? Know a teacher or librarian who would like a FREE SIGNED CHESTER COMIC???? I need their help to get Chester into the vast Accelerated Reader program run by Renaissance Learning!!

If you have a student in grades 3-8 you know that Accelerated Reader is now driving a lot of the reading students do. Teachers set goals for students to get a certain number of “AR points” each quarter, and the students get those points by reading a book of their choice and taking the AR test on it. Books that have AR tests tend to get purchased by classroom teachers and librarians.

AR has been adding graphic novels to its list of book quizzes. Heck, it even has the “I Spy” series in its catalog!!! CHESTER SHOULD BE IN THERE! But he’s not. To get in, a teacher or librarian needs to make the request. Please go to this page and fill out the form so Chester can get in there! If a teacher specifically requests 5 of my titles to AR, I’ll send a signed comic to them! (they should email me which 5 they requested and tell me where to mail the comic)

http://www.renlearn.com/ar/customercare/titlesuggestions.asp

Here’s a list of my 26 titles with the ISBNs (they need to give those to AR) – simple as cutting from here and pasting into the AR form. THANKS FOR PASSING THE WORD ON!!!

Exploring the Americas (978-0-9729616-3-9)
See the clash of cultures as white Europeans set foot in the North American woods that are home to the First Americans. Who wins the fight for Florida? Who claims the Mississippi River – and then loses it? And why are the English so happy to find fish? Meet Columbus, Cabot, Cartier, LaSalle, Champlain, deLeon, deSoto and Menendez in this funny, colorful graphic novel!

The First Americans (978-0-9729616-4-6)
Chester the Crab meets the first people to live in North America. He traces the cultures of the Anasazi and Pueblo in the Southwest, the Nootka and Kwakiutl in the Northwest, the Plains Indians in the Midwest, the Mound Builders in the Mississippi and Ohio river valleys and the Iroquois in the East – and their clash with European settlers and explorers!

American Symbols (978-0-9729616-0-8)
Which words were added to the Pledge of Allegiance decades after it was written? What color was the White House before it was burned? How did American students help pay for the Statue of Liberty? You’ll learn about these and other famous American icons in this funny, colorful graphic novel!

Comix Economix (978-0-9729616-1-5)
This is the fun way to teach complicated economic ideas like opportunity cost, supply and demand, taxes and capital resources. Chester the Crab explains economics using a trip to a video rental store, a safari with The Tax Hunter and the tracing of how a dollar changes forms as it goes through a suburban mall.

Wonder Women (978-0-9729616-9-1)
Which famous American dropped out of school so she could nurse her sick brother for two years – by putting leeches on him to drain his blood? Who was arrested for voting for a president? Who was a wanted woman in the South with a $40,000 bounty on her head? Meet Clara Barton, Harriet Tubman, Susan B. Anthony and Helen Keller.

Revolutionary Rumblings (978-0-9729616-6-0)
Why did guys in powdered wigs argue over a breakfast beverage?!?! Chester the Crab shows the road to the American Revolution – how money arguments became political arguments and then became shooting arguments. The colonial conflict begins in the French and Indian War, then moves to the Boston Massacre and Boston Tea Party and finally follows Paul Revere towards the writing of the Declaration of Independence.

War for Independence (978-0-9729616-8-4)
Here are the high points in the battles of the American Revolution: John Paul Jones on the sea, the Battle of Saratoga, the Battle of Monmouth, the hit-and-run fighting of Francis “Swamp Fox” Marion and the Battle of Yorktown. But it also highlights the role women and blacks played in George Washington’s military campaigns against the British.

Constitution Construction (978-0-9729616-2-2)
The complicated ideas behind the United States Constitution are described through adventure heroes! John Locke describes our rights in a state of nature from his perch on a vine as lord of a jungle. John Peter Zenger tests freedom of speech as a mild-mannered journalist from another land. Thomas Jefferson erects a statue for religious freedom, separating church from state. Finally, the writing of the plan for our government is told as a quest to build a new starship for Captain Washington, Mr. Madison and George “Bones” Mason.

Slavery’s Storm (978-0-9729616-7-7)
The struggle for freedom grows in the years before the Civil War. Witness Nat Turner’s Revolt, the largest slave uprising in United States history. See how the land grab of the Mexican War opens the West to the arguments between free states and slave states. Hear the arguments in Dred Scott’s legal battle for freedom and the Supreme Court’s decision that he was not a man but a piece of property. With hope of compromise dwindling, John Brown raids a weapons factory to start a slave revolution and sparks the Civil War.

Go West, Young Crab! (978-0-9729616-5-3)
How did the Oregon Trail help make butter for the settlers pushing west? Why didn’t the man who started the gold rush in California get rich? Are Chinese workers successful when they go on strike to get more money for building the Transcontinental Railroad? And what happens when George Custer counts 800 Sioux warriors and ends up facing 3,500?

Ancient Africa (978-1-933122-03-8)
Chester the Crab takes you on a trip through the ancient and powerful African kingdoms of Egypt and Mali in this look at cultures that have contributed a lot to the diversity of modern America. See how trade bound these Africans to other Mediterranean societies. And then watch as European sailors begin dealing with African slave traders to send millions of people against their will to North America in “The Middle Passage.”

The Civil War, vol. 1 (978-1-933122-05-2)
The fight that split the United States begins! Chester the Crab traces the way states seceded from the Union, shows the attack on Fort Sumter that began the fighting, witnesses Stonewall Jackson’s victory at the First Battle of Manassas and steers through the Battle of the Ironclads in Virginia and the Battle of Antietam in Maryland.

The Civil War, vol. 2 (978-1-933122-06-9)
The Battle of Vicksburg opens the entire Mississippi River to Union shipping. The Battle of Gettysburg ends the Confederate invasion of the North and is the turning point in the war. Union soldiers burn Atlanta and many Southern farms on their March to the Sea. The fighting comes to a close after a long siege of Petersburg near Richmond. And Chester the Crab answers the question: Was Confederate President Jeff Davis captured wearing a dress?

Greeks, Romans, Countrymen (978-1-933122-01-4)
America was founded on the ideas practiced by the ancient Greeks and Romans. Follow Chester the Crab as he helps a runner in the Olympics, visits a theater with Poseidon, goes to war with Alexander the Great, enlists in the Roman legion, builds an arch for an aqueduct and outraces the lava from Mount Vesuvius!

The Jamestown Journey (978-1-933122-04-5)
The sailor who helped plant the first permanent English settlement in North America was a real Pirate of the Caribbean! The businessmen who paid for the colony wanted to discover gold. Captain John Smith never married Pocahontas. And the colony never made its own coins – so people traded tobacco leaves.

Virginia Geography (978-1-933122-00-7)
The first permanent British settlement in North America was also the first capital of Virginia. But Jamestown was a killer – the swampy land carried diseases that killed thousands of colonists. One winter there was cannibalism! Trace the struggle that changed the Old Dominion from a deathtrap into the most powerful of the 13 colonies and home of many of America’s Founding Fathers.

Vital Virginians (978-1-933122-02-1)
Explore the progress of civil rights in America in the 20th Century by learning about some famous Virginians. Maggie Lena Walker was the first woman to be president of a chartered bank in America. Harry F. Byrd Sr. opposed the post-World War II push for desegregation by crafting the South’s “Massive Resistance” strategy. When that failed, people of color such as Arthur Ashe benefited!

World War 2 Tales (978-1-933122-26-7)
Chester spans the globe to tell the story of World War 2 and the struggle of democratic nations against fascist nations trying to supply easy answers at the end of a gun. From the invasion of Poland to the atomic bombs on Japan, this colorful graphic novel will excite reluctant readers, prepare students for standardized tests in history, and help homeschooling parents!

The Civil Rights Freedom Train (978-1-933122-28-1)
The United States promised freedom and equality to African-Americans after the Civil War ended in 1865. But for decades there was just a shadow form of citizenship for most of them. Laws separated the races and treated African-Americans unfairly. African-Americans traveled to Northern cities looking for opportunity and freedom. When African-Americans fought and died in World War II and came home to a nation still practicing racism, they decided it was time to make America pay its debt to them. The leaders in that march were Jackie Robinson, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., and Thurgood Marshall.

Tar Heel Tales (1-933122-24-2)
One of the first British attempts to settle North America was in North Carolina. But the Roanoke colony has trouble from the beginning with its location, its food supply, and its relations with the first Americans living nearby. That settlement disappears, but the colony of North Carolina returns to play a vital part in America’s history, from the American Revolution to the Civil War to man’s first powered flight at Kitty Hawk.

Reconstruction Junction (978-1-933122-34-2)
The end of the American Civil War is not the end of the conflict between Northern states and Southern states. The battlefield shooting is over, but the political arguments over civil rights go on – sometimes with new violence between whites and black citizens. It is a confusing and dark time as Americans try to put their broken nation back together. The lessons learned – and missed — in the Reconstruction Era will affect American history for another 100 years.

Lewis and Clark Transportation (978-1-933122-33-5)
After the American Revolution, the people of the new United States look westward for a new start. President Thomas Jefferson makes the Louisiana Purchase from France 1803 and sends Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore the land west of the Mississippi River. The tales the two tell when they return spur this question: How will Americans GET to this new land? Over water, via the Erie Canal? Over a new National Road through the Midwest? This will be a nation founded on transportation!

GOVERNMENT (978-1-933122-32-8)
Most adults agree that one goal of social studies education is to build better citizens. Chester can help! The four chapters in this graphic novel turn political theory into funny and active visual examples, from forming a new government on an alien planet to passing a law to power bicycles with solar energy. Included are chapters on how we elect a president and what the parts of a presidential cabinet are.

Founding Fathers (978-1-933122-30-7)
Chester the Crab meets some of the people who helped create the United States of America as a bold and independent nation. Sometimes that creation of a new kind of government was messy. There were fights and arguments. These people — Patrick Henry, John Marshall, George Washington — set in motion debates that we still have today about what it means to be American.

Heroic Folk (978-1-933122-35-9)
Americans like to tell stories about larger-than-life characters that match the grand landscape of our continent. This book of Chester the Crab’s adventures shows how America’s folk tales and legends are often connected to historical fact because these stories tell us something about ourselves. Included are Johnny Appleseed, Davy Crockett and John Henry!

Moving and Grooving (978-1-933122-36-6)
Chester traces different kinds of transportation across 400 years of American history – with a special emphasis on the past century. He compares and contrasts walking, horseriding, sailing, railroading, driving and flying. There is a chapter specifically about the Wright Brothers developing the first heavier-than-air craft and a chapter on the development of the Interstate Highway System.

Tags: Accelerated Reader, Bentley Boyd, Chester Comix, Chester the Crab, comic book, education, graphic novel, history, literacy
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