Ms. Wozniak’s Reading News

1. Reading Specialist swozniak@twinsburg.oh.us.k12 (330) 486-2046 April 25, 2014 "Children are made readers on the laps of their parents." — Emilie Buchwald Ms. Wozniak’sReading News Another one of my favorite children’s authors is Patricia Polacco. Her picture books have amazing illustrations as well as great stories. The first time I heard of her was in graduate school when my professor read “The Keeping Quilt”. I come from a family of quilters as well as immigrants so this story touched me deeply. I had the honor of seeing Patricia Polacco at a conference and she read the story to us (She is not just an author but an amazing storyteller in person.). It is about a quilt that they made from clothes of their relatives left behind when they came to America and all the things they did with the quilt. At the end Patricia pulled out the quilt to show us and there was not a dry eye in the house. Even more amazing is that Patricia had learning disabilities and struggled to read until about 5th grade. Her teacher looked beyond what he saw and found out how to reach her way of learning. Now, not all her books will make you cry, but all of them will touch your heart. “Thank You, Mr. Falker” is her story and I think it speaks to all of us as everyone has something that we struggled at and hopefully someone stepped forward to help us see things in a different light so success followed. The following is a YouTube video of Jane Kaczmarek reading “Thank You, Mr. Falker”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abN2aP_Dzd0 Research shows that reading to your children is just as valuable as them reading to you. One of my professors, Dr. Tim Rasinski, told me he read aloud to and with his children through college, even if it meant reading their textbooks back and forth with them. What a gift of time and memories, let alone to share that love of reading. I hope that all your children find a Mr. Falker….