We are proud of the work we did in 2014, which wouldn’t have been possible without your support. Please take a minute to check out our 2014 Annual Report:
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Finding Ways to Ship Books
It’s that time of year: Spring. And with the season comes the dreaded but rewarding duty: Spring Cleaning. Why not triple the reward: clean out your house, donate your goods to a worthy cause, and raise money for A to Z.
Savers, located at 230 West Virginia, makes donating your gently used items easy. Simply drive your car through the drive up and an employee will meet you at your car to take your items. Just mention that you are supporting A to Z and they will also donate money to help us support our number one goal: shipping books to the impoverished areas of Africa.
You + Fundraiser = Yearly Goals Met
Time is ticking and ticket sales have been way down for Trivia Night.
Saturday, February 21st is coming fast and we’re worried about our annual A to Z fundraiser.
Got a party of four? Great! We’d love to have you come out and enjoy the evening. Party of six? Sure! We’ve got a spot for you, too.
This is our one chance to raise enough money to meet our yearly goals which include: shipping books to impoverished schools, providing funds to cover the cost of school lunch, and helping to support teacher salaries at a small school in Zambia.
Please head to the website to purchase your tickets and we look forward to seeing you Saturday night at the Park Place in Crystal Lake. www.atozliteracy.org
Trivia Night Is Back!!!
Please go to http://www.atozliteracy.org to order your tickets today!
Summer Reading
By Wendy Lasswell
As long as I can remember summer reading has been about reading book series. I think it started with the “Little House” books. I actually brought one of those books with me to a slumber party and read a few chapters when the other girls were asleep. There was the “Flowers in the Attic” series. I remember begging my mom to take me to B. Dalton to buy the next book in the series…..I really can’t believe she let me read those! More recently there was Harry Potter, The Twilight series and The Hunger Games.
And then there was the summer I strayed from book collections and read the epic: “The Thorn Birds”. Oh, what a book that was! BTW, did you know that Colleen McCullough just published a book this August? “Bittersweet” It’s on my “to read” list.
I read some really great books this summer, although none were part of any series. But what I must confess is that mostly this summer I have been counting down the days until August 26th. That is the day “The Long Way Home” by Louise Penny will be released. This is the 10th book in the series….I cannot express how much I love these books and read them over and over. These are classic who-done-it mysteries set in the small Quebec village of Three Pines, and oh how I want to live there; even if the murder per capita is outrageous! I want to be best friends with Clara the yet- to- be discovered artist and Myrna the retired psychologist who now owns the new and used book store on the village square. I want to go to The Bistro to hang out with Gabri and his partner Olivier and drink café au lait next to the crackling fireplace. I think you get the idea…..
So don’t be worried if I don’t answer your emails or reply to any text messages on the 26th…..I’ll be reading!
2 MORE DAYS!
If You Know It, Sing Along
If You Know It, Sing Along
Zambia, Zambia, What do you see?
by Betty Trummel
Using patterns of words, phrases, or themes in a story can be a powerful teaching tool. I capitalized on the repetitive pattern of a favorite book for young children to make a connection to my Zambian students at Shine Zambia Reading Academy.
“Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” by Bill Martin, Jr. and Eric Carle introduces a series of animals…bear, bird, horse, cat, dog, sheep, goldfish…and ends with the teacher and children looking at the animals. Once I read through the book, the children easily picked up the word pattern and were able to read the book with me the second time around. They were ready to go!
Next, after reading several books about African animals and using my African animal finger puppets to give information about Zambian native species, we created a list on the board. For many of these children this information is new, as they have little to no opportunity to see these animals in real life. Without many opportunities to leave the compounds of Lusaka in which they live, it is unlikely that they will ever witness these animals in a natural habitat.
Using the list we had generated, we used the exact same format to create a new story: “Zambia, Zambia, What Do You See?” This time the students added an elephant, zebra, wildebeest, lion, impala, crocodile, rhino, hippo, etc. “looking at me.”
Once I get back home, I’ll self-publish this new story and send it back to the students at Shine. Since we are encouraging the teachers and students to do more writing as part of their literacy program, this demonstrates how fun and easy it is to create our own stories, sometimes with a familiar pattern or format. What fun it was to read and create with these early readers at Shine.
Tell Me About Debate Club
Summer Reading
By Pat Kelly
The 2014 Zambia A to Z team has been talking books in addition to reading books and preaching the value of literacy. Our bus and plane trips, daily walk or drive to the schools we have served and two dozen evenings together have given us lovely hours of discussion. Like giraffes to the Acacia tree we keep coming back to what we’ ve been reading, have read and want to read. We have scratched lists on electronic tablets and scraps of paper, discovering that many of our favorites were read by others in the quartet.
We’ d like to share with you some of our ” hot picks”:
“The End of Your Life Book Club” by Will Schwalbe
“Grayson” by Lynn Cox
“The Boys in the Boat” by Daniel James Brown
“The Art of Racing in the Rain” by Garth Stein
“The Red Tent” by Anita Diamant
“Being Henry David” by Cal Armistead
“Sarah’ s Key” by Tatiana de Rosnay
” Annie Freeman’ s Fabulous Traveling Funeral” by Kris Radish
” Left to Tell” by Immaculee Ilibagiza
“The Hiding Place” by Corrie ten Boom
A to Z Literacy Movement Blog 