Quebec Reading Connection
I divide my work between teaching with the Lester B. Pearson School Board and working at Quebec Reading Connection, a literacy project at the Ministère de l’Éducation et de l'Enseignement supérieur (MEES). My work at QRC involves selecting and recommending great titles for Quebec educators, writing activity suggestions and curriculum alignment for the books, and doing professional development with educators and future-educators. In this section I highlight favourite titles and resources.
Here is a favourite seasonal recommendation from QRC!
Some of the activity suggestions I wrote include:
- What do you notice about the illustration at the beginning of nine windows? What might be its significance? Revisit your inferences and predictions as you read and gather more information
- Role play either the boy or the girl in the story and read the text aloud in pairs or groups.
- Are you more likely to agree with the girl or the boy in the story? Write about your preferences and the connections you have with the characters in the story.
- What if the story were set in summer? Work together to write a story called Summer is for ____.
This is a great text to teach your children or students about the woman who will be the new face of the ten dollar bill!
Some of the activity suggestions include:
- Discuss how Viola Desmond stood up for the rights of black people in 1946. Consider how her act was similar to and different from that of Rosa Parks.
- Think of examples of segregation or intimidation that exist today. What other people could be helped? Find three arguments to convince a person that everyone has the same basic rights.
- What did Viola Desmond do for black rights in Canada? Create a bookmark highlighting the key points.
When I first picked up this book, I had no idea that collective nouns could be so delightful. From the book description: "In this book, a wide range of aquatic animals are spotlighted, with brief stories that relate to their collective nouns. For a “party” of rainbow fish, the text explains, “. . . the dwarf rainbow fish is said to be particularly social . . . Good looks and personality? Party on!” For an “array” of eels, the language discusses eel habits, as well as the variety of pattern formations, 'presenting a striking array of colours.' "
We recommend this book for grade 2 to secondary cycle 2!
From the description on the website:
"This original anthology of reversible verse—poems that can be read forward and then backward, for another meaning—is inspired by classic fairy tales. The two versions capture the opposing viewpoints of characters or objects from the same tale. “Mirror Mirror,” the title poem, depicts a compassionate Snow White caring for the seven dwarfs. Read in reverse, it’s about the queen’s wicked plan to eliminate Snow White with a poison apple.
The act of reading the same poem both ways introduces readers to clever wordplay, the power of punctuation and the notion of language as a multifaceted puzzle: “It may be such/a fairy-tale secret,/this much/I know:/The road leads/wherever/you need to go” and its flip-side—“You need to go/wherever/the road leads—/I know/this much./A fairy-tale secret?/It may be such.” Best appreciated visually, the poems are also suitable for read-aloud."
Don't let the simplicity of this topic mislead you! This book is rich, detailed, engaging and complex!
Some of the suggested ELA activities from the site include:
- Examine how the pictures, labels, dialogue and diagrams work together to convey information about the sports. How does your prior knowledge of the sports help you make inferences among these features?
- Write (three) sports trivia questions based on information in the book. In teams, try to answer each other's questions in a friendly trivia challenge.
- Invent a new sport and produce a book page in the same style as Sport-O-Rama. Assemble your pages into a class book.
The description for this book reads, "Finding beauty in unlikely places; making something from nothing; paying attention. These themes are shown in satisfying images depicting a father and child running errands, meeting people—and finding pretty weeds that grow in the most inhospitable places." This is a wonderful wordless book that is delightful to pour over in a large group, small group or alone!