Tuesday, June 8, 2021

Carlsbad Library ▬ Graphic Novel: A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words for Learners

Keep It Together: Words on Inclusion, Equity and Diversity

Carlsbad Library Literacy

Learning Connection: May/June 2021 by Sandra Riggins

Graphic Novel: A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words for Learners

Want to try something new with your reading? Graphic novels are a great resource for learners. Some people think that graphic novels are just comic books for kids, but they are so much more.

What Are Graphic Novels?

Today’s graphic novels are works of art that teach. Graphic novels have artwork on every page that help tell the story.

This is what makes it great for learners. There are many details of the story and setting that are shown with the pictures. It helps learners to understand the story because they can see details of the setting and situation without reading. This makes it easier to concentrate on the words and to understand the story better.

Great Graphic Novels in Our Collection

March
March
by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin
Illustrated by Nate Powell

This is the story of the life of John Lewis and his work for civil rights. This three-book series gives you his firsthand account of peacefully working for civil rights. You will understand the civil rights movement in ways you never did before.


Good Talk
Good Talk by Mira Jacob

This novel was written by the author about raising a son who is half Jewish and half Indian. It’s an interesting story about how she handles the challenges of his duel identities. Reader warning: There are adult situations, brief nudity and sexuality in this graphic novel.


When Stars
Are Scattered
When Stars Are Scattered
by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed
Illustrated by Victoria Jamieson

This is the story of a young boy and his non-verbal brother living in a refugee camp in Kenya. Their father was killed and they were accidentally separated from their mother in Somalia. Although the story sounds sad, it is filled with tremendous hope. The illustrations are beautiful and colorful. It is an amazing true story.   READ MORE ➤➤

 
Automatic Readability Checker
Based on 7 readability formulas:
Grade Level: 8
Reading Level: standard / average.
Reader's Age: 12-14 yrs. old
(Seventh and Eighth graders)

Carlsbad Library Literacy

Building skills, changing lives

Read to a child or read better at work.

Literacy Services provides tutoring to English-speaking adults who want to improve their basic reading and writing skills.

Learners are provided a friendly, supportive environment, where their needs and goals are valued. Each learner studies with a trained volunteer tutor. All services are free and confidential.

For more information, call 760-931-4510


Tuesday, June 1, 2021

How Audiobooks Can Make People More Literate ▬ Medium

How Audiobooks Can Make People More Literate
Professional audiobook narrators help bridge the ‘understanding gap’
AudioFile Magazine

Medium: 9.08.2018 by AudioFile Magazine *

Educators and cognitive scientists recognize that “reading” is a very broad term. In the audiobook community, we already know that “reading” can and does mean critical listening as well as visual understanding of printed text. Pushback still comes from some who believe that“to read” is to decode visually. I like to call them reading “print-bound purists.” As most long-established “eye-readers” know, assumptions about characters, plot direction, and capacity to grasp how facts in chapter one will be required in chapter seven, can and do miss the mark on any first complete reading of a book. How many of these print-bound purists re-read texts — silently, of course, as 20th century pedagogy taught many of us to be a requirement of “skillful” reading?

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Professional audiobook narrators, in fact, are the people who do that essential pre-reading for us before we sit down to acquire the author’s work by listening to interpretive choices that make sense the first time around as listening readers. Professional narrators, having familiarized themselves thoroughly with the book before the recording session begins, know and impart appropriate pacing and alterations in inflections that we can have from the get-go when we hear their reading. Passages dense with significant and complex information are delivered in a manner that allows us to concentrate point by point instead of rushing by without collecting what we need for understanding the next stage of the work. And when personal names may be too close for eye comfort, narrators introduce specific tones — if not outright voices — that allow us to distinguish between speakers readily.

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Try these audiobooks as examples of how reading comprehension can receive significant boosts from hearing skilled narrators:

What do I need to understand about this character? The War that Saved My Life, by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, read by Jane Entwistle

How can I make sense of all these technical explanations when I’m not even sure which clause is important? Death by Black Hole and Other Cosmic Quandaries, by Neil DeGrasse Tyson, read by Dion Graham

Who’s who when I see a cavalcade of character names that I can’t distinguish among quickly? Death Notice, by Zhou Haohui, translated by Zac Haluza, read by Joel de la Fuente

 
* AudioFile Magazine
reviews and recommends good listening, top-notch performances and dynamic listening experiences. We do not sell audiobooks.

READ MORE ➤➤

 
Based on 7 readability formulas:
Grade Level: 14
Reading Level: difficult to read.
Reader's Age: 21-22 yrs. old
(college level)