This week I have been talking with some young people about what reading is to them and what they like to read about. They had some very fun and very funny things to say.
Catherine, age 4
“I like to read books that are pink and have sparkles that have princesses and girls in them with a prince who loves pink princesses.”
Hank, age 6
“Books are fun only when my mom makes voices and my dad does the actions of the people inside the books.”
Jackson, age 3
“I just like books, they are fun when they are colorful.”
Ryan, age 7
“Books are good. My teachers makes us read for 20 minutes everyday but if I like to book I will read longer. My favorite book is Captain Underpants.”
I love hearing kids talk about books. You get such a wide description of their experiences. Ask your kids, or cousins, nieces or nephews what they like to read and what they do to prepare to read. Do they like quiet, alone time, bedtime, long books, pictures, or do they like to make up stories? Let them show you how they read. Then come share!
In line with this weeks celebration of Children’s Books I though I would share some of my favorite books as a child. Most of my adventures centered around beautiful princesses, rescuing princes, fairies, and girlish dreams of love. Here is my top 5, I would love to hear yours.
5. The Twelve Dancing Princesses by The Brothers Grim
4. The Eleventh Hour by Graeme Base
3. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnette
2. Ramona Quimby age 8 by Beverly Cleary
1. The Value of Believing in Yourself: The Story of Louis Pasteur by Spencer Johnson, MD.
I bet you watched and heard of children in others countries on infomercials at 3am talking about poverty, education shortfalls, and the bleak future these children face. The shortage of teachers and schools available leaves children who are left by parents searching for work to enter into the service industry, cleaning the homes of the small amount of wealthy, seamstresses, or manufacturing cheap American goods for export making even less than the products are worth. The scariest of trades comes when these children are kidnapped and forced into the sex industry.
Heartbreaking, and hard to imagine considering the luxury we gain from living in America. But companies are starting to take notice of elearning and the benefits that can be obtained from providing courses to children with refurbished computers.
eLearning can provide a fairly cheap and sometimes donated tool to bring students into learning and give them options other than poverty. It is a way to break the cycle of countries that are struggling to provide education.
eLearning can be the link that gives children success in the most unsuccessful countries and even in within the US, states that have large areas of poverty can benefit from programs that provide refurbished computers and software that enhances learning. Tools that could be used in community centers, after school programs and church outreach. eLearning is no longer just about books, it is a whole new opportunity for giving the greatest tool for advancement - knowledge.
As a student I am so excited about a article written two days ago on Econtentmag.com about Web 2.0 and ebooks in the classroom. Educators are taking notice the opportunity to not only save money from the rising costs of printing new and updated versions of textbooks each year but also the effects of green economics and more and more students looking for alternatives.
Bookshelf provides free software, allowing users to download, store, and manage etextbooks. With publishers such as McGraw-Hill, Elsevier, and John Wiley & Sons providing textbooks in the VitalBook format, users have the option of downloading directly from a publisher’s website or through VitalSource.
Just to give an example of the uses increase, last years NFP Read an eBook Week saw and catered to a small group of 1200 readers, however this year the group heard from and saw participation from some 30k users.
Jason Overby from the College of Charleston explains, new features are making the books more useful. “I’ve known about electronic books for quite a while, but I’ve never been a fan of what was available up until this point,”
The new options for not only download of textbooks, but to take notes and transfer chapters to mobile devices such as iPhone and Blackberry a student does not have to drag with him 5 textbooks, a laptop, and notebooks; the new student be more efficient and learn in a language that not only speaks his, but also is more likely to be read and studied. Since users are more comfortable with downloading content (thanks iTunes) it is now user friendly so use ebooks and etexts.
Like I said before, as a student this is a simple sell for me.
ebooks are catching on, and not just on Amazon or with Sony, but with big name publishers. The Guardian out of the UK stated in a artical regarding the London Book Fair, that ebooks are a booming and rising options for readers. The market is starting to take a second look at what they can expect and gain from this technology. Some also, however, ask the question is it like VHS v. Beta-max? Will the price point and format war be the killer or will the strong survive and flourish?
In south Alabama, Jackson High School has won the Laura Bush Gulf Coast School Library Recovery Initiative Grants Program for $25,000, in order to expand the reference material within the school to ebook format. A big win for the high school and an even bigger win for the ebook market. The fact that schools are catching on and seeing the benefit to their technologically advance and majority technology friendly students want them is major. This way they might actually look up the information instead of buying it from a paper “genius”.
I have to mention that it has been finals week for me so I apologize for my absence. I have been thinking as I have sat in the library for about a week, if there was a cot I would have slept here, anyway, if universities incorporated ebooks into their format for finals and for studying the use and need would be wonderful for students and also would save tremendously on paper. I asked my professor what we spent on paper (each professor has an account that the university pays but keeps track of) this semester his amount copied and printed was over $400 worth of paper. So my point being that ebooks and etests would be nice, convient not to mention Earth friendly.
I noticed Oprah is now Twittering, I wonder is the magic gone or growing from Twitter, now that everyone is doing it does it bring growth or new way to fail? I think the same about ebooks, many people ask me the same question in regard to ebooks and elearning for kids, “will it bring growth, or a new way to be lazy?
Let me just say I firmly believe that ebooks will bring a new way to be productive. A new way for kids to learn, and share knowledge across a wider table. eBooks will allow more knowledge to be given and taken and also people who could not get a book deal can write to another audience. I know moms who would love to write for kids, and kids who write for kids and ebook publishing gives them a chance.
So I ask you ebooks, a buzz word or the new great read?
Sitting with my 5 year old this morning for our daily coffee and conversations, we were enjoying Between The Lions (PBSkids.org) and as he was listening to the book being read and watching the character come to life from a 2 dimensional image on a book cover to real moving, talking, dancing person; I thought that’s an ebook! Meaning, mothers watch stories being read on show like this and Reading Rainbow, Blues Clues, Sesame Street, and Word World; but it is not perceived as an ebook, its perceived as a story on TV which somehow makes it different.
Putting the two together the same animation and sound that is being played for our pre-schoolers and young children on TV is being focused for ebooks. Mothers I asked about ebooks for their children, were most hesitant about letting a computer do the reading, but they said they allowed their children to watch some of the programs mentioned above for a small amount of time. When asked why most said something along the lines of it was only for a select about of time and in conjunction with the one-on-one reading they did with them.
Ok, so I think we need a new perception of what educational partners are. If we allow our children to watch programs that assist in their learning and then allow then to go to the computer to play the games provided by those television shows to again partner with parents in the name of education, we should be willing to cut out some of the middle man. Ebook sites, especially Wizz-E.com provide education through books with or without sound, games, and only accept books from the best of authors. This way publishers of ebooks can provide the education and entertainment that goes side by side with learning to read.
I am not saying that educational shows are not valuable, but I will take books over TV any day. I know that this morning while conversating with Chandler (5 year old) he gets the most out of Between the Lions when they show stories coming to life and talking to him. When words and music are showing him something, he locks into it. I love PBSkids and the shows they provide, it gives us a block to stand on for reaching the top shelf of books. But, I also love great ebooks that come to life, they give me as a parent another tool to show how fantastic and magical books are.
What do you think? Have you ever looked at books/TV this way?
So you’ve heard about ebooks, maybe even read some, but what can you expect for your kids when you read ebooks from Wizz-E.com?
quality books
familiar stories that come to life with animation and sound
read along or read aloud
full color
puzzles and games to engage your child in activities that are fun as well as educational
a way to partner with you in the great excitement of reading with your child
At Wizz-E.com you can even preview a book and read a free ebook just for subscribing! Go see what the Wizz-ard has to offer, and come back and let us know what you think, what we can add or change or even what books you would love to read on Wizz-E!
What a great time to show your green by skipping those paper books and find some new reads in ebooks. Not only are they a simple and easy way to catch up on your Spring reading list ebooks are completely GREEN!
The people at All Romance eBooks have launched a site all about going green. Not about authors or stories, but promoting the ebooks and all the glories that come with using them.
We chose to do this because the idea that nature should be preserved is important to us. It is a core value and one of the reasons that we adore eBooks
eBooks are delivered to the end user electronically. They are read electronically. They are disposed of with a push of a delete button, without ever taking up room in a landfill.
Some numbers:
Consider This:
It takes twelve trees to produce a ton of printing paper. Twenty-four trees for higher grade writing paper.
A mature tree can produce as much oxygen in a season as ten people inhale in a year.
Only 5% of the paper used in the book industry is recycled.
Up to 35% of books printed for consumers are never read. They are returned to the publisher and end up in landfills.
71% of the world’s paper supply comes from natural forests, rather than tree farms.
So, this St. Paddy’s day show the world that being green doesn’t have to end on March 18 and those trees can live another day!
Wizz-E.com is BIG! With the recent launch of Wizz-e’s ebooks kids are reading like never before. NOW, Wizz-E announces the availability of games! Not only games but puzzles!!
Kids can visit the Wizard to read, with the magic of sounds and animation then go and learn through educational games and puzzles.
As they say, But wait there’s more….
More to come more stories, more games, more puzzles!
We chose to do this because the idea that nature should be preserved is important to us. It is a core value and one of the reasons that we adore eBooks 
