Hello Friends,

So many great people have crossed my path and shared their great ideas this month that it is hard to know what to share with teachers, families, and friends. I'll begin with some ideas about what can be learned on the 'Net; I'll continue with a story of Wyatt's reading; and, I'll end with Prairie Pedagogy, Notes from the Real World, and for the first time, I have a favor to ask of you. Finally, a pedagogical and political cartoon by David Coverly is posted at the very bottom. Thank you, David, for sharing with us.

Free Voluntary Surfing
I have been inspired, yet again, by the work of Steve Krashen. Many of you know of his contributions regarding Free Voluntary Reading (FVR) http://www.sdkrashen.com/articles/pac5/index.html. Now, Steve is exploring a new idea, Free Voluntary Surfing (FSV); it is Steve's hypothesis that when students wander through the internet and read what interests them, their knowledge and literacy increase, while simultaneously improving their proficiency the language. For example, if I wander through the Net in Spanish and read things which interest me, it will help maintain and improve my Spanish. Stay tuned to Steve's website (http://www.sdkrashen.com) for more information on this. I asked the students in my foundation credential class to keep track of their incidental learning while surfing the web this week. I am posting a little summary below. You will note that this group of students read only in English, but I know that Steve is anxious to hear of our learning in any other language, too.

• Patti found Jill Mora's pages, http://coe.sdsu.edu/people/jmora/, and learned that bilingual students have not improved their academic achievement since the passage of Prop 227.
• Amanda discovered the joy of using Stanislaus Country Library website, http://www.stanislauslibrary.org.
• Becca discovered www.montereybayaquarium.com and www.brainpopjr.com and www.enchantedlearning.com.
• Cindy found 88 generalizations about free voluntary reading, http://www.sdkrashen.com/handouts/88Generalizations/index.html, and she told her colleagues online that this site had "tons" of helpful information.

I also shared this idea of FVS with a group of area teachers who are interested the students learning more content in a language, which they understand-Spanish, in this case. This conversation immediately led us to do some FVS in Spanish. We share a few of the websites, which we explored.

• Latin American Network Information Center http://lanic.utexas.edu
  This is a very deep website, with materials to use in class and a broad range of reading materials for students and adults.
• E.L. Easton, Materials for Teaching and Learning http://eleaston.com/spanish-read.html#N
• Marty Levine, a Professor Emeritus from CSU Northridge shares generously at this website. http://www.csun.edu/~hcedu013/eslbil.html
  During my FVS of this website, I happened upon
• Casa de Joanna http://www.casadejoanna.com/ Joanna Porvin maintains a huge website with materials for any age in Spanish or French.
• Just Good Stuff www.elladvocates.org

4 Benchmarks to Literacy Development: Wyatt Finally Reads (a lot)