Why Johnny still can't read.

From my colleague at the Seattle Times comes this column on what makes for a successful school. His take is based on the The Money Myth: School Resources, Outcomes, and Equity. I'll have to actually crack the cover of this book to determine whether it rises above the annual cache of books promising to transform education.

Yesterday, I spent the morning at an elementary school in an affluent Seattle neighborhood watching a teacher teach reading to third-graders. This teacher is touted as being one of the best at unlocking the doors in the brain that lead to reading fluency. The bulk of academic problems begin with trouble reading, which compounds academic problems down the road.

This class was so hard for me to watch in part because I read well and I learned to read early. I never had to go through the building blocks of reading and trying to do that now is like an architect trying to tell you how they built a building. Unless you went through every step, you don't know. One thing I learned is that the biggest predictor of reading success is having good sight memory (you see a word once and remember it from then) and having high phonemic awareness, knowing the sounds letters make.

Later in the morning I met a former architect who quit her job to volunteer full time as a reading tutor at the school. Watching her pull apart the building blocks of reading to get to the origins, the way kids learn the sound of ph or what it means when they see ck at the end of a word, gives me hope for improving America's literacy rates.

First tooth, first mugging, say what???

A paen to raising children in the city begins this way: First shave, first concert, first kiss, first smoke — they’re all teenage rites of passage, right up there with bar mitzvahs, quinceanaras and Sweet 16 parties.
But when you raise your kids in the city, there’s another to add to the list: First mugging.

Makes you want to run, not drive trailed by a moving van, to the nearest suburban enclave. But the New York Times piece has more to say.

Including these four words that made me lol, if only because last night I had the ultimate suburban experience as my son and I walked one of his friends home, shouting out the names of constellations brilliant in the midnight blue sky and taking turns watching out for coyotes: “Check yourself for ticks.”

Here's a way to enjoy Valentine's Day without the extra calories

Read Bill Buford, Notes of a Gastronome, “Extreme Chocolate,” from the October 29th, 2007 issue of The New Yorker.

I came across this while researching for a Seattle Times editorial arguing that chocolate is recession-proof. Everything you've ever wanted to know about the origin and value of chocolate is in there. Plus, Buford is a good, evocative writer.

The worst sin? Procrastination

I've always felt uneasy but okay with my tendacy to put things off since half of America is right there with me. Put off until tomorrow what you are dreading doing today seems to be our motto. A list of things I plan to do some day clutters my brain and I move things either to the forefront or the back burner, only when I cannot ignore their embarassing presence any longer.

Minutes ago, I found out someone I knew and liked, someone I thought I had all the time in the world to get to know and become friends with, has died. The first thing most of us think of when someone dies is how? We want to make sense of such a permanent occurence. When the death occurs suddenly, we are left speechless and devastated, the loss all the more acute because we had no time to prepare for it. Death hits hard whether you see it coming or not, but the unknowing, versus knowing and steeling oneself, is like a punch to the gut out of nowhere. Perhaps your hands would have flown up to protect yourself, perhaps not, but the reality is you weren't given the option of choosing.

I will pray for this person's family and remember again how there are no coincidences in life, people are placed in our paths for a reason. There is beauty and meaning in every encounter, if only we have the sense to recognize it. Her premature death also reminds me of the imperative to move through life with the understanding that it is fleeting. 

On his deathbed, Michaelangelo told his apprentice, "Draw Antonio, draw Antonio draw, and do not waste time."