When you are blessed with an opportunity to visit with an individual whose career has been dedicated to helping children learn how to read and love reading, the conversation will be a good one. When you add decades of service as a professor at the University of Lethbridge, dedicated in large part to helping pre-service teachers develop the skills to support the instruction of all aspects of literacy, you are really on to something special. When it turns out that your guest is also a voracious reader of detective mystery novels that feed a desire to know more about other places around the world, that’s just fun. Our podcast conversation with Dr. Robin Bright of the University of Lethbridge was all that and more.
Before we go any further in the write-up, we recommend that educators with any focus on literacy in the classroom and supporting readers wherever they are in their journey add Dr. Robin Bright’s most recent book, Sometimes Reading is Hard, to their professional library.
We always asked about our guests’ reading, and Robin did not disappoint. She provided us with two fiction series that she truly enjoys and shared a little about how books open windows to the world in one’s imagination. Robin started with Drew Hayden Taylor’s book Cold and reminded us that Drew is responsible for a number of great books, including Motorcycles and Sweetgrass.
It was a pleasant surprise to learn that Robin travels a great deal in her mind through reading Detective Books, specifically the Commissario Brunette Series by Donna Leon, set in Italy, and the Aimée Leduc series by Cara Black, set in Paris and the surrounding area. The first books of each series are below.
Robin offered a couple of picture books for our consideration as just a glimpse into the possibilities around an entire episode dedicated to picture books and their place in the classroom, home and life of our students young and old. EveryBody’s Different on EveryBody Street by Sheree Fitch, art by Emma Fitzgerald is a great book for conversations with your young students or children as is another of the collaboration works of Susan Verde and Peter Reynolds, “I Am Me: A Book of Authenticity”.
Robin shared some online resources, including:
A presentation by Nancy Frey – “Skill, Will and Thrill of Reading” https://youtu.be/xAgWrvQJxAY?si=4dAafpcUhM8r0fY3
The Canadian Children’s Book Centre – Programs, resources and publications for teachers, families and students and lists of books for grades, areas of interest and more.
Shanahan on Literacy – Dr. Timothy Shanahan’s website with resources, links, blog/newsletter
An invitation to check out the academic publications of the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary’s Dr. Maren Aukerman.
In closing, Dr. Bright offered a professional read for all educators, particularly those wondering about that wonderful and oft-used phrase, “Science of Reading,” inviting a read of “Fact-checking The Science of Reading: Opening up the conversation” by Robert J Tierney and P. David Pearson.
