Promoting Literacy…A Reason to Celebrate International Literacy Day is a time for reflection and celebration. Each year on September 8, a community of nations hosts local and national events that recognize the value of literacy to individuals, families, and communities. Thousands of reading professionals and volunteers are recognized for their daily work and dedication. The newly literate are applauded for their persistence and encouraged to go on learning. Leaders recommit to policies and practices that give hope to those marginalized by their lack of education, skills, and knowledge, including an estimated 860 million adults (two thirds of whom are women) who do not know how to read or write and more than 100 million children, again the majority female, who lack access to school.Just what can you do to improve literacy in your community:Celebrate with a book fair.• Stage a Fun Run for Literacy and provide donated books to participants.• Use newspapers to go global — conduct a scavenger hunt for country names or compare how stories are covered by newspapers from different parts of the world.• The ReadWriteThink.org website (www.readwritethink.org), developed by the International Reading Association and the National Council of Teachers of English with support from the Verizon Foundation, provides lesson plans and activities for reading that incorporate technology and the Internet.• Access ReadWriteThink SEARCH (at top right corner of homepage) to find a variety of innovative lesson plans for your grade level and topic.• Use the interactive Student Materials (by clicking on the purple STUDENT MATERIALS tab) to have students create alphabet books, comic strips, flip books, and newspapers.Other online activities are available in this section.• Check the ReadWriteThink Calendar (by clicking on CALENDAR from the homepage) to find literacy activities that relate to events throughout the year. For each event, there is a related Classroom Activity, in addition to lesson plans, Web links, and texts.Information provided from the International Reading Association website (http://www.reading.org/General/Conferences/InternationalLiteracyDay.aspx).
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