Here are two excellent additions to The Best Resources On “Close Reading”:

Here’s a sample chapter from Notice and Note, the great book by Kylene Beers and Robert E. Probst.

Grant Wiggins has written a very thorough and helpful post on the topic.

Bonus: Here’s a third interesting one: Does Background Knowledge Matter to Reading Comprehension? by Russ Walsh.

I’m adding this great image to My Best Posts On Books: Why They’re Important & How To Help Students Select, Read, Write & Discuss Them:

Reading helps you see further. (h/t @parisreview) twitter.com/farnamstreet/s…

— Shane Parrish (@farnamstreet) April 19, 2013

Five ways to get kids to want to read and write is an excerpt from my book, Self-Driven Learning, that was published by the Washington Post this morning.

There wasn’t room for the short introduction to the excerpt that I wrote, so I’ll publish it here instead:

Sir Ken Robinson has said:

“Farmers and gardeners know you cannot make a plant grow….The plant grows itself. What you do is provide the conditions for growth. And great farmers know what the conditions are and bad ones don’t. Great teachers know what the conditions for growth are…”

Unfortunately, we teachers might often feel pressured to believe that the best “conditions for growth” include treating students as “vessels to be filled,” giving and taking away “points,”  or using other types of punishments and rewards (eerily similar to how some “school reformers” want to treat educators themselves).

The word intrinsic comes from the Latin intrinsecus, which is a combination of two Latin words meaning “within” and “alongside.” All our students are intrinsically motivated—it just might not always be for doing what we want them to do. Our challenge is to work alongside our students and learn what their “self-interests” –  goals, desires, dreams — might be and develop the trusting relationships needed to guide, extend, and expand them.

My new book, Self-Driven Learning: Teaching Strategies for Student Motivation, which is excerpted here and is a sequel to my earlier book,  Helping Students Motivate Themselves, provides research and practice-based strategies and lesson plans that can help teachers begin to help provide fertile soil for the right growth conditions….

Chinua Achebe’s Legacy, in His Own Words is an Atlantic reprint of a great interview with Chinua Achebe, who died today. Here’s a quote:

World Book Day was designated by UNESCO as a worldwide celebration of books and reading, and is marked in over 100 countries around the globe.

Check out The Best Resources For World Book Day.

March 6th is World Read Aloud Day this year, and I’ve just updated The Best Resources For World Read Aloud Day.

Additional suggestions are always welcome.

Letters of Note regularly highlights incredibly engaging…letters — often written by historical figures. I’ve periodically highlighted some of them here.

They published their Best Of 2012, and it’s really good.

Thanks to Ed Yong for the tip.

The American Dialect Society has just named “hashtag” its word of the year.

You can see all the other winners at the same link.

I’m adding the info to The Best “Words Of The Year” Features For 2012.

Here are new additions to The Best “Words Of The Year” Features For 2012:

The Words That Will Be Banished in 2013 is from The Atlantic.

Good Riddance! ‘Fiscal Cliff’ Tops List Of ‘Words To Be Banished’ is from NPR.

Here are new additions to The Best “Words Of The Year” Features For 2012:

What new words were created in 2012? is a video from The BBC.

25 wonderful words and phrases we learned in 2012 is from The Week.

Let’s Double Down On A Superstorm Of Malarkey: Picking 2012′s Word Of The Year is from NPR.

Here are new additions to The Best “Words Of The Year” Features For 2012:

Test Your 2012 Slang Skills is a fun interactive from The PBS News Hour.

Words of 2012 is from The New York Times.

Edutopia sent this tweet out today:

Here are some recent posts on books and reading. I’m adding this post to My Best Posts On Books: Why They’re Important & How To Help Students Select, Read, Write & Discuss Them:

For Those Who Want to Lead, Read is from The Harvard Business Review.

Books: A Living History is from Brain Pickings.

The Power of Purposeful Reading is by Cris Tovani.

Leah Price on the History of Reading is from The Browser.

And here are some new additions to The Best Resources On “Becoming What We Read”:

How Good Books Can Change You is from The Atlantic.

“LOSING YOURSELF” IN A FICTIONAL CHARACTER CAN AFFECT YOUR REAL LIFE is from Ohio State University.

Phonics: The Sounds Of English is a very impressive interactive from The BBC.

This new site and Reading Bear are clearly the two best sites on the Web for phonics reinforcement.

I’m adding it to The Best Articles & Sites For Teachers & Students To Learn About Phonics.