KBN NOTES FROM UNCLE HENRY

KBN announces a new research-based national learning initiative to rebuild American education.

2011-03-24T15:56:00.000-07:00

The Kids’ Book Network, in cooperation with the U.S. Reading Team Foundation, is pleased to announce a new national initiative to refocus American education on solving a major problem in educational achievement.
As of today, the KBN website features a complete program of free books and instructional support designed to enable any parent to teach their toddler to begin reading before the age of two.
You'll find a full explanation of the Read At Two program – including toddler learning objectives, parent teaching strategies, and much more – in the program's 28-page Parent Handbook. The Handbook is located and available for easy direct on-monitor viewing on the special KBN library page for every book featured in the program.

   We're introducing our Read At Two program primarily to support parents and caregivers of children from approximately 18 to 36 months old, the toddler age. Then, we've brought the same books into the KBN library, in our new Pre-K and Kindergarten book categories – with the addition of their California teaching/learning standards – for versatile use in the classroom with children from Pre-K and Kindergarten to First Grade and beyond.
   This way (a) parents can now have an easy-to-follow way to scaffold their children's early reading and language development at home, while (b) children can continue on and even accelerate their learning progress with the same familiar books as part of their first years in classroom education.
   And finally, (c) professional classroom teachers and educators now have a way both to support parent at-home teaching, as well as to work with traditional public and school libraries and librarians to overcome any other book shortages or other at-home reading/learning limitations.
   Why is such early reading development so crucially important?
   The answer has to do with both strong early vocabulary development and the habit of intellectual exploration during the at-home, toddler phase of child development – without which a child is later likely to experience an irreplaceable loss of learning facility in middle- and high school.
   As discovered through a major longitudinal study by educational researchers Hart and Risley [The Early Catastrophe: The 30 Million Word Gap by Age 3, In: American Educator, Spring, 2003], vocabulary use at age 3 is strongly predictive of both language skills and reading comprehension at age 9-10. And many parents, although they may love and nurture their children in other ways, simply don’t actively speak and converse with their children enough to build their vocabulary and related cognitive powers to the level necessary for easier and higher learning success.
   That’s what daily reading with books can achieve. And that’s what KBN’s new national initiative is all about.
   KBN today wants every parent and educator in America to understand that all children need to sit in their parent or caregiver’s lap every day and start reading books, and more books, starting as early as just 14- or 16- or 18-months old.
   To that end, KBN’s free Read At Two program and Parent Handbook provide a sensible, practical platform, or every-day learning/development instrument, to enable families to give their children the critical interactive parent-child experience they need for strong mental development. Reading development is almost a side benefit to the increase in vocabulary development and affirmation experience that comes with parents holding their babies on their laps and discovering together the meaning and content of books.
   Local site-level implementation of KBN’s national Read At Two initiative, including education and family support, will be directed in parallel by the U.S. Reading Team Foundation, which will seek to work closely with families in local and regional school, library and social services partnerships – to help us all step up to a new standard in American education.
   Now let’s get started.

Are you wearing your hardhat?

2011-01-14T12:08:00.000-08:00

By the time everyone got back in school in January KBN hoped to have construction complete and several important new options in national literacy development fully installed – to empower teachers, parents, and of course kids.

But all that is still in progress. So please continue to excuse the construction noise along with confusing fragments of change now beginning to appear on the KBN website.

And get ready for an exciting new year.

From all of us at KBN, best wishes to the best teachers, best parents and best children in the world!

Why make books?

2010-10-25T09:01:00.000-07:00

Of course with all of the books in the KBN library available for convenient, on-screen or on-projector reading in the classroom some may wonder why we continue to emphasize the importance of making KBN books on paper.

Is that not perhaps obsolete?

Actually it’s just the opposite.

First, only the on-paper book gives the young reader the experience of a book as a solid object of content and value. Not just another form of flowing video.

The concrete, on-paper book gives the young reader-learner a much stronger way to become engaged with the concept of book, and to bond with the meaning of the story. In terms of Piaget’s views on both the preoperational and concrete operational stages of cognitive development, it accelerates the ability of the reader to construct a stronger, more useful schema of what a book is and what it may hold.

It serves to deepen, as well, the experience of reading satisfaction, and strengthens the reader’s ability to absorb and retain the specific story or information content.

Reading an authentic on-paper, page-turning book also provides a unique platform for the developing reader to read the story over and over. It enables the reader to reinforce “learning” in terms of text recognition and, in the case of early reading development, it supports better character and word recognition as well.

Recent studies on the learning impact of handwriting exercises in contrast to typing exercises provide an illuminating parallel. A 2008 study reported in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience showed that the physical experience of hand-writing characters on paper leads to better and longer-lasting visual recognition of these same characters later.

The importance of the direct sensory connection of the reader with the book in his or her hands, and the kinesthetic experience of turning pages, cannot be overemphasized.

Plus, when you learn how you can actually make copies of a book that you like, well, that’s pretty darn exciting. And color the book yourself? That’s so much fun, too.

Suddenly it’s not so difficult to see how the close connection with a physical book you make yourself and you can carry around in your backpack might help children place a higher value on both the book and the experience.

Q. How did Johannes Gutenberg become such a great reader?

A. He made his own books.

The next big technology. The new excitement of reading.

2010-09-10T09:34:00.000-07:00

I don't know if you've noticed, but young readers today seem to face more electronic distractions than ever.

Originally it was year after year of TV reruns. Then more recently it became hour after hour after hour of the endless bam, splat, and zonk of video games.

And whatever time is left is now devoted to peer conversations on Facebook.
But the power of strong, active literacy remains the most important human skill for the 21st century. It is the neurotech core at the foundation of all personal control over reasoning and logic, and the critical engine of human scientific and social progress.

Readers are the next leaders.
So in the year ahead our KBN objective is to make reading more fun and more satisfying at every level.

And we hope more and more parents, teachers, librarians, kids, politicians, critics and dogs will all join with us to make it happen.

It becomes all the more important that we engage young readers today with the full experience of reading, and that means capturing their attention to develop their skills with books – along with teaching and learning concepts – that are bright, original, surprising, fresh and perhaps sometimes challenging, but always exciting.

Looking back on KBN's amazing Year One. And a look at what's coming next.

2010-08-13T09:51:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago our KBN Teacher Talk Center looked back at KBN's Year One. But not every KBN visitor reads Teacher Talk, so perhaps what was noted there is worth repeating here. Both the Kids' Book Network and the teaching year got off to a fast start last September 1, and by June 24, 2010, both KBN and our teacher colleagues concluded an amazing year in U.S. education.

Reflecting on what we've accomplished in Year One, it's clear that we've come a long way in less than ten months.

First, we introduced the concept and practical possibility of free, self-made books for every child in the world. Picture books, coloring books, adventure books, puzzle books, microbooks, and literary classics. Even one book in eight languages.

Our original KBN books are witty and fresh books you can download, print and form into classic on-paper, page-turning quality books to read and share with friends and family, at home or in the classroom.

Next, we introduced the unique device-free reading technology of live on-screen bookcasting. And suddenly reading is more fun and exciting than ever.

The Kids' Book Network website has now been identified as an information resource for young readers from Kindergarten through Grade Six by CLRN, the official California Learning Resource Network. And we're pleased to see that visitors from around the planet have begun to discover KBN – from Australia and Brazil to China and Russia.

But we're just getting started. As kids and teachers now return to school in September, 2010, KBN will be working with in-the-classroom educators to make classroom teaching smarter, more effective and easier than ever. For our Year Two we have plans for many more fresh and original KBN books for young readers, of course, but also more great teaching and learning features for America's teachers.

In just a few weeks, for example, we'll be publishing the first of what we hope will become many original KBN books written by kids themselves, starting with a very special book for a very special moment in history – the story of Fr. Hidalgo, considered the father of Mexico, on bicentennial of the Mexican Revolution. When teachers can show students what other students are writing, featured on KBN, students are encouraged and inspired to write more stories of their own.

We'll also be introducing a new category of foundational reading books to support an exciting new style of reading instruction by our pre-K, kindergarten and early grade teachers. And we'll be working to bring parents into our KBN teaching program as well, with our Read At Two program which will connect early at-home and pre-school reading development with in-school instruction.

It's going to be another exciting year.

We want every teacher to succeed, we want every child to read.

Words are not given to Man in order to conceal his thoughts.

2010-07-03T22:24:00.000-07:00

Several weeks ago the world witnessed the passing of the Nobel Prize-winning Portuguese author José Saramago.

"Words," the novelist once observed with dry simplicity, "are not given to Man in order to conceal his thoughts."

Saramago appreciated the core function of language, allowing us to communicate with each other for survival, and our human need to share our thoughts and ideas.

Nowhere is this critical exchange and compression of meaning so powerfully captured as in the book.

And that is why, despite every new form of serial information made possible by electronic technologies, reading is. and literacy will remain. the critical human skill in the 21st century.

Better health for every child in the world.

2010-04-04T22:29:00.000-07:00

Everyone is concerned that children today are becoming seriously overweight. Pediatric body fat and health problems have become a national epidemic.
So here's one answer.
When it's time to reward students in the classroom, maybe it's also time to replace the traditional reward of sweets with a new classic prize that has no calories at all. One that might actually provide some nutritional benefit to the brain.

   Now, for less than the cost of a couple of fat-loaded candy bars the size of your thumb, you can print out a complete, 48-page free minibook from KBN.
   Sure, the actual cost either way is only a few pennies. But look at the nutritional difference.
   Two of those tiny chocolate crispy bars provide all the nutrition of 120 junk food calories, including 53 calories of saturated fat. And that's it.
   On the other hand a free 48-page KBN picture book has no calories at all. But it provides a child with a real on-paper, page-turning book experience that he can read and enjoy personally, share with friends, and then keep to read again and again.
   For healthier children in America's classrooms let's agree to forget the candy. Instead, let's think about the special nutritional fun for young readers in the prize of a book from KBN.

KBN introduces a new, very different computer-based media experience. What should we call it?

2010-02-18T11:17:00.000-08:00

   First came the Kindle. Then a few weeks ago it was the iPad.
   Now, finally, KBN is pleased to announce the introduction of a new, very different media experience featuring the most advanced design and user technology yet. Our new invention is far more performance-driven, requires users to buy no new hardware, and actually lets people read whole books, without squinting, up big on the largest computer monitors – or even projected theater-size on your family room wall.

   Just imagine. Now your whole family can sit down together in the family room and, instead of watching old Lassie reruns and reality cooking shows on TV, you can read a whole book together up on the wall of your new state-of-the-art family reading center.
   We need a name for this new media experience, so what should we call it?
   What do you think? Bookcasting™ maybe.
   After you say the word only a few hundred times you actually start to get used to it.
   Try it again. Bookcasting.
   This week we are introducing the first authentic bookcasting to the world on the KBN website, so sit back with some popcorn and get ready to enjoy reading a good book like never before.
   Just select any KBN picture book, for example, click on the flashbook option, and start reading.
   Tired of all the same old arguments between Republicans and Democrats? Want to see some solid new ideas for our political future? Consider the thoughtful options you will find in the recent KBN sociopolitical study What If Dogs Ran The World?

   Or are you possibly in the mood for something lighter? Then you might enjoy Possibly The 100 Worst Jokes Of All Time.
   Or would you prefer something more educational? Then you'll want to read the documentary The Tooth Fairy Goes Off To School.
   See? The possibilities are almost endless. Now you understand why more and more kids, parents, teachers, politicians, pundits and phrenologists are turning to KBN.
   Bookcasting.
   It's starting here and it's starting now.

KBN welcomes Linda Lee. And the fun of reading books you sometimes just have to write yourself.

2010-02-13T21:25:00.000-08:00

This week we are pleased to welcome Linda Lee as a contributing KBN author/illustrator.

   An extraordinary artist living in Amsterdam, her work can be charmingly innocent one moment – as in her new book for KBN for which the story was lost, apparently, because her dog ate it – and sharply witty and complex the next as in her sophisticated visual commentaries appearing in the euro design magazine DZone.
   Linda Lee has illustrated literally hundreds of picture books, educational books, magazines, games, puzzles, and much more. A visit to her website at www.lindalee.nl offers a delightful exploration of the visually unexpected.
   Interactive reception concepts are also an important focus of the artist. Recently, for example, she developed a series of nursery paintings which children can not only observe, but touch and feel as well. Now, with The Metal Detector, she brings KBN readers a fresh interactive children’s story.
   Like a silent movie, The Metal Detector can be read perfectly well without text. But with the help of limited metatext the work also invites young readers to tell the story they observe in the cinematic flow of images in words, which of course are their own words. Children are encouraged, further, to inscribe the story they create directly into the book, which becomes a unique interactive work actually written by its readers.

Parents will treasure this book. And teachers are provided with more classroom suggestions in our KBN Teacher Talk review.

Happy New Year in 2010 to children around the world!

2009-12-28T10:21:00.000-08:00

It doesn't get more fun than this.
In 2009 the Kids' Book Network launched the idea of free books
for every child in the world. Not just simple educational sample
downloads, or subscription classroom learning materials.
You can find that stuff all over the internet.
What KBN introduced was the concept of real, on-paper,
page-turning books, all for free download, in all of the classic
forms of children's literature. Picture books. Adventure books.
Coloring books. Joke books. Puzzle books. And literary classics.
Even books in new twitter-age forms like our almost
origami-size microbooks.
And of course our KBN books represent the same quality of
books you would expect to find in a popular bookstore or
public library.
So what's ahead for 2010?

Well, once we get our KBN staff to wake up from their deep
Winter sleep and charge back to work – get ready for even more free books, more fresh ideas, and more big fun. And as we
recently promised, look for the first of many more books
coming up soon from the best international authors and
illustrators – plus books in a new format to project and
read on the biggest walls anywhere in the world.
Happy New Year from KBN!

KBN's first Thanksgiving.

2009-11-30T10:56:00.000-08:00

The Kids' Book Network was launched on September 1, 2009.
   That's only three months ago. But as we reach the Thanksgiving season we already have much for which we are very grateful.
   First, the website itself was effectively complete, functional and glitch-free from Day One. Some people with spam blockers found it blocked the completion of their KBN registration – and it still does – if they don't advise their blocker to accept all messages from hello@read4free.net which sends the standard KBN message to complete the registration.
   Our registered users are starting to build as more and more parents, kids, teachers and other educators learn about KBN. And they're giving us some very helpful feedback and new ideas, too.
   We've already added some more swell free books – like our Halloween thriller The Vileburgers in October, as well as the suitable-for-framing Rembrandt's Coloring Book. And we have many, many more exciting books scheduled for publication in our first KBN full year ahead.
   We're inviting the best international children's book authors and illustrators, for example, to showcase some of their most original ideas with us on the Kids' Book Network, featured in some of their most delightful stories, and we'll be publishing the first of these works very soon.
   December also marks the publication of our second literary classic after the Wizard of Oz. And it marks as well our first cooperative publication with one of America's leading academic libraries.
   The classic A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens was first published in a British newspaper, in a serialized format, in 1843. Republished here just in time for Christmas – again in a "serialized," five-part format – our special edition of of the story was carefully prepared by scholars at the University of Virginia Library and has been made available to KBN with their kind permission.

   Beginning in January teachers – and everyone else – will also be able to download many of our books in a convenient powerpoint show format for dramatic classroom projection, so a whole class can enjoy reading together at the same time. The teacher can pace the "page-turning" to the next page just like any on-paper book, to match the readiness of her class to move forward to the next idea in the story.
   And finally, we're beginning to see more and more institutional support as teachers themselves are telling other teachers about our website, and the new opportunities for enhancing literacy and learning in the classroom using the completely free books and materials on the Kids' Book Network.
   Everyone who has visited KBN seems to be as excited as we are about our mission – to bring free books to every child in the world.
   And at this special moment of Thanksgiving we wish to thank you all. Thank you for your enthusiasm, ideas and continuing encouragement.

Here come The Vileburgers. Genies they are, geniuses they're not.

2009-10-08T21:04:00.000-07:00

According to Kirkus, The Vileburgers is something like "City Slickers meets Ghostbusters" with an outcome that's "enjoyably ridiculous."
Bookwire, on the other hand, describes this new KBN action novel as "replete with elements of magic, humor and wit" and categorizes it as a "new Halloween classic ... imaginative adventure ... hilarious cast." We of course appreciate their enthusiasm.

   But the movie-style criticism from these reviewers is not entirely accidental. Vileburgers was deliberately written by the author in "scenes" rather than traditional book "chapters," and was written as well in the present tense to add additional immediacy and a certain live quality to the story – just like the experience of sitting in a "movie."
   That also makes it the perfect novel for teachers to use with the literacy development practice known as Readers Theater. So when you locate and download The Vileburgers from its location in the KBN Action Books category you'll also find a very complete series of lesson plans featuring Readers Theater.
   Published by KBN here in three episodes, we hope The Vileburgers adds extra fun to your October!

KBN introduces The Wizard of Oz.

2009-10-08T13:04:00.000-07:00

Just like KBN today the Wizard of Oz represents a new direction for its time in children's literature.
When L. Frank Baum first wrote and published the Wizard of Oz in 1900 he wanted to move the genre forward – to a new generation of characters and themes, and away from the continuous threats to children that characterized so many of the stories and fables and fairy tales written by Anderson and the aptly-named Grimm.

   When children read out of pleasure rather than fear, they enjoy the experience more, they read more, and ultimately they learn to read better.
   While the motion picture made from the Baum Oz stories is certainly a classic in its own right, the wit and charm of the original novel can't be completely translated to celluloid. The complexity of the characters, the surprising ideas and amusing sophistication of the narrative are simply exceptional and still a pleasure today for readers of all ages.
   Republishing the work here in five smaller, episodic volumes, we are very pleased to showcase The Wizard of Oz as one of the premiere titles in the KBN classic books section.
   Just print and read Volume I – and you'll just have to read the rest. Otherwise how will you know if Dorothy ever gets back to Kansas?

Can't complete your KBN registration? Maybe it's your darn spamblocker.

2009-09-23T07:24:00.000-07:00

It looks like some philosophers, radio announcers and politicians are having trouble completing their KBN registration because they cannot receive their KBN e-mail confirmation. Bummer. The problem seems to be that they have set up some sort of spamblocker on their e-mail which is not all that smart about identifying actual spam, and blocks out the incoming registration notice coming from hello@read4free.net.
If that has happened to you we hope you have somehow figured it out by now and have told your anti-spam service to let any message from KBN's hello@read4free.net through the gate. Or, you can perhaps look in the e-mail folder that holds your incoming spam and see if you can find your hello@read4free.net KBN registration notice there.

Finally, before you try to register with KBN, if you have a spamblocker on your system be sure to inform it to add our hello@read4free.net address to your let-it-in "whitelist." That way you can complete your registration and start downloading your free books from the KBN library.

Do the math.

2009-09-02T18:51:00.000-07:00

We don't want to appear anti-technology by proposing that the classic paper book is still the most advanced and flexible technological form today for reading with both efficiency and pleasure.

Some years ago we bought and deployed the first general purpose PCs in American business, and we have always appreciated the opportunities and possibilities inherent in new technology. But each new form of communications technology that comes along doesn't necessarily replace a previous technology.

Gurus and pundits with gravelly voices announced that the arrival of television in 1948 would mean the end of radio. But 50 years later the radio industry was more prosperous than ever.

So what's wrong with the idea that electronic books of one form or another will soon replace classic paper books? A number of factors are easily miscalculated.

Do the math.

Let's start with a look at the new, improved electronic book device that will almost certainly come out next week or next month, and let's call it the Dwindle. The Dwindle will cost approximately $200. If the buyer reads 100 books with the Dwindle before it becomes obsolete in one or two years, that would be pretty darn good. Let's say the Dwindle reader pays $8 bucks for each electronic book he reads, inexpensive compared to the cost of any conventional hardback novel today. But the total cost for one person to read 100 books is now $1000.

The bottom line, then, is that 100 electronic book-reads costs $1000. Got that?

Now let's say we take the same thousand bucks and buy 50 hardback on-paper novels or 50 non-fiction works in history, philosophy or science. But these novels or other works are stored on paper, which won't become obsolete in two years. They might be around and still very readable for ten or even a hundred years. And in a school or public library, it's quite possible that in ten years at least 10 people might read these humble on-paper books.

This means that, for the same $1000 investment, instead of just 100 book-reads, you might get the investment payback of 500 books read by book readers. Which means, of course, that classic paper-format books today are still about 5 times as cost-efficient as the snazzy electronic Dwindle.

Plus, you've got all the other advantages.

For example, if you absentmindedly leave your current paper book on the seat of a taxi, or it gets beach sand in its circuitry or eaten by your dog, you're don't have to immediately shell out another $200 bucks for another Dwindle.

Which takes us to the next issue, recycling.

Most paper today is recycled, used over and over. So your dog-eaten paper novel might return a few months later as a new novel, or as almost anything else people do with paper today. Environmentally-speaking, then, the classic paper format for narrative and data storage is pretty clean.

But we can't quite say the same yet for your pricy Dwindle.

Reducing the toxic pollution of landfill sites from lead in the circuits of obsolete electronic equipment is becoming a significant issue. On a global basis, many millions of outdated computers and other electronic components with lead-solder circuitry are dumped in landfill sites each year. And rate of pollution will only worsen with present technology.
The simple paper book, on the other hand, is completely lead- and battery-free.

We're not saying that the paper book will someday replace the Dwindle completely. Technology will evolve, costs and prices will drop, and users will identify new uses of convenience. Just like television, the advantages of compact electronic text-face products will eventually find their mature media niche.

But the classic paper-based book will also continue to prosper. And as a way to experience reading, in new forms like the KBN neobook, it is likely become more popular than ever.

I wake up with an interesting idea.

2009-08-09T22:08:00.000-07:00

      Every once in awhile I wake up with a new idea.
      The effect when I announce this at the breakfast table is predictable. Women begin to weep, cats howl and dogs crawl under the table. But on the morning of December 1, 2007, for some reason it was different.
      The idea was elegantly simple. It was the possibility of a new web-based media which might be termed the neobook.

      Everything that the interesting new Kindle was, it wasn't.
    It turned state-of-the-art computer technology and web transmission away from an effort to replace the classic on-paper storage format, and around to a simple reinvention of book costs and distribution.
      It might be sponsored by the same advertisers who sponsor conventional saturday morning kid TV shows and cartoons.
      But the content would be completely different, and could put free books into the hands of every child in the world.

      The promise of the idea was irresistible.
      And now, after almost two years in development, the concept has become the new Kids’ Book Network.
      Welcome to KBN.