A taste of Read Boston 2008

Norah's performance Schedule for July 28th- 31st

My last week of READ BOSTON 2008 Storymobile Full Summer Schedule as a pdf. For more information, please visit www.readboston.org or call 617-918-5290. All performances are open to the public. Each performance is about 1/2 hour in length. Sometimes, a show be even shorter if there are volunteer readers. At the end, each child gets to pick out a book to read and keep.
Contact me a few days in advance @ doochild6@aol.com if you want to meet me. I travel by bicycle when the weather permits. I recommend googlemaps for directions.

JULY 28st MONDAY
10AM
Escuelita Boriken - 85 West Newton Street 02118
11:15AM
South End Library - 685 Tremont Street 02118
1:15 AM
St. Mary's Women's and Children's Center 02125

JULY 29nd TUESDAY
10:00 AM
Salvation Army Children's Learning Center - 26 Wales Street, Dorchester 02124
11:15AM
Crispus Atticus Children's Center - 105 Crawford Street 02121
1:15 PM
Marshall School Age Program - 35 Westville Street, 02124

JULY 30th WEDNESDAY
10:00AM
JP Head Start - 315 Centre Street JP 02130
11:15AM
Lena Park Child Development Center - 150 American Legion Highway Dorchester 02124
1:15PM
Bromley Heath Housing - the Cave - 30 Bickford Street JP 02130

JULY 31st THURSDAY
10:00AM
Jackson Mann Community Center - 500 Cambridge Street Allston 02134
11:15AM
Commonwealth Tenants Association - 35 Fidelis Way Brighton 02135
1:15PM
Oak Square YMCA - 615 Washington Street Brighton 02135

Norah's performance Schedule for July 21st- 24th

READ BOSTON 2008 Storymobile Full Summer Schedule as a pdf. For more information, please visit www.readboston.org or call 617-918-5290. All performances are open to the public. Each performance is about 1/2 hour in length. Sometimes, a show be even shorter if there are volunteer readers. At the end, each child gets to pick out a book to read and keep.
Contact me a few days in advance @ doochild6@aol.com if you want to meet me. I travel by bicycle when the weather permits. Look at this blog for next week's schedule. And I recommend googlemaps for directions.

JULY 21st MONDAY
10AM
West End House - 105 Allston Street, 02134
11:15AM
St. Columbkille School, McElroy Hall on BC Campus
1:15 AM
Honan Allston Library - 300 North Harvard Ave, 02134

JULY 22nd TUESDAY
10:00 AM
Suouth Side Head Start - 19 Corinth Street, Roslindale 02131
11:15AM
beetoheven Elementary School - 5125 Washington Street, 02132
1:15 PM
English High School - 144 McBride Street, 02130

JULY 23rd WEDNESDAY
10:00AM
Jeffries Point - 425 Sumner Street, 02128
11:15AM
EB YMCA @ Harborside Community Center -- 312 Border Street, 02128
1:15PM
EB YMCA @ Guild School -- 195 Leyden Street, 02128

JULY 24th THURSDAY
10:00AM
United South End Settlements -- 48 Rutland Street, 02118
11:15AM
Tadpole Playground on Boston Common , next to the Frog Pond
1:15PM
Red Oak at Josiah Quincy School -- 885 Washington Street, 02111

This says it all ...from The Onion

Working on a campaign this time? Not me. Working on election reform, yes.

Show me how and where and I am there.

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

Norah's performance Schedule for July 14- 16th

READ BOSTON 2008 Storymobile Full Summer Schedule as a pdf. For more information, please visit www.readboston.org or call 617-918-5290. All performances are open to the public. Each performance is about 1/2 hour in length. Sometimes, a show be even shorter if there are volunteer readers. At the end, each child gets to pick out a book to read and keep.
Contact me a few days in advance @ doochild6@aol.com if you want to meet me. I travel by bicycle when the weather permits. Look at this blog for next week's schedule. And I recommend googlemaps for directions.

JULY 14th MONDAY
10AM
Dimock/ Smart Kids - 1880 Columbus Avenue, 2nd floor Roxbury 02119
11:15AM
Children's Services - 520 Dudley Street Roxbury 02119
1:15 AM
DotWell Atlas Adventures - 1353 Dorchester Ave. 02122

JULY 15th TUESDAY
10:00 AM
Sociedad Latina - 1530 Tremont Street, Roxbury 02119
11:15AM
Parker Hill Fenway Head Start - 716 Parker Hill Street, Roxbury 02120
1:15 PM
Mission Main Summer Program - 39 Smith Street, Roxbury 02120

JULY 16th TUESDAY
10:00AM
YMCA,Kids Stop 1208 VFW Parkway, West Roxbury, 02132
11:15AM
Willow Path Child Care - 5-7 VFW Parkway, Roslindale 02131
1:15PM
Agassiz Community Center - 20 Child Street Jamaica Plain 02130

Tonight at Gulu Gulu Speak Up- thanks!

Thanks Tony T, Bob S and Don White and all the good folks at the spoken word open mic at Gulu Gulu Café , Lynn MA . Mad props to all who cooked, served, listened, read, ranted, raved, emceed and told. A great place and a great night of words, ideas and passion. Here is the link to the podcast I mentioned about Boys Wearing Pink Click on the link or cut and paste. http://storypodnewengland.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=309548
For more stories about people doing good in the world see: http://www.globalonenessproject.org
Sending you all peace love and courage. See you next time when Laura Packer is the feature!
Norah
Gimundo Canada: Students Wear Pink to Stop School Bullying
3/25/2008

School can be as traumatizing as any battlefield. There are the locker room wedgies, the Dodgeball attacks, the lunchroom shunnings. But even the most cringe-worthy moment from your high school days probably doesn't compare to the humiliation felt by one freshman male from Central Kings Rural High School in Nova Scotia, who dared to wear a pink shirt on the first day of school last year. The poor boy paid dearly for his fashion choice: A group of older students mocked him relentlessly, threatening to beat him up. The incident might have served as a warning for other males at the school to avoid anything in pastels. But instead, two senior boys, David Shepherd and Travis Price, took up the bullied boy's cause as a rallying cry.
"Kids don't need this in their lives, worrying about what to wear to school," Price told The Chronicle Herald. "That should be the last thing on their minds." The two seniors were sick of the abuse – so they came up with a plan to make the bullies see red. Or rather, pink.
The following day, the two boys came to school armed with a pile of 75 pink tank tops, which they handed out to all of the male students to wear – including the bullied freshman. As word of their mission spread through the school, more students showed up wearing something pink of their own. Shepherd and Price estimated that around half of the school's 830 students put on something pink in solidarity. "The bullies got angry," Chase said. "One guy was throwing chairs (in the cafeteria). We're glad we got the response we wanted." The stunt proved so popular, in fact, that it's led to an official Anti-Bullying Day in Nova Scotia on the second Thursday of every school year. British Columbia has recently adopted their own version, on February 27th of each year. For both holidays, students are encouraged to dress in pink to show acceptance of their fellow students, proving that there's nothing wrong with showing your true colors after all.
http://www.gimundo.com/Articles/Daily/906

Norah's performance Schedule for this week July 7- 11th

JULY 9th WEDNESDAY
Storytrain @ 10 take the commuter rail to Rockport MA from North Station. There will be public performance @ lunch time in Rockport, MA at Millbrook Meadow. For details contact: Sara Collins 978-526-7711: scollins@mvlc.org

JULY 10th THURSDAY
10:00AM
Roxbury YMCA, 285 MLK Blvd., Roxbury MA
11:15AM
HBCooper Community Center, 1891 Washington St., Roxbury
1:15PM
Vine Street Community Center, 339 Dudley Street, Roxbury

Theater of the mind -listener feedback
Today, at the end of a story session a teen aged girl came up to me and said, " That was great, I totally saw and heard everything you said." Music to my ears! I thanked and told her this was the highest praise. What we storytellers are doing is theater of the mind and it is sweet when the words and movements work well enough that a listener can tell you that they saw and heard everything - that they actively created the story as they listened.

Speech and learning

Thanks to Karen Chace [ http://karenchace.blogspot.com/2008_07_01_archive.html ]
for this interesting article:

Rising number of primary pupils unable to speak in sentences

Polly Curtis, education editor
Tuesday July 8, 2008
The Guardian

The number of children who arrive at primary school unable to speak in full sentences is rising, according to a government review which today reveals that 7% of children now have a serious communication problem.

A rise in "home-related" speech problems, shown by children who are not encouraged by their parents to speak from an early age, is fuelling the increase, according to the Tory MP John Bercow, who has carried out a review for the government.

In some of the most disadvantaged areas of the country, up to 50% of children had speech problems, he said.

Bercow's review calls on schools to monitor speech development from the start. It will request more information for parents on what to do if their toddlers do not start talking.

Children's problems range from stuttering and a general "impoverishment" of language if not encouraged to speak to autism and speech difficulties among those with hearing loss. "The 7% are those who have big difficulties with speech or language - they are likely to need specialist or targeted intervention," Bercow told the Guardian. "For others, the home is a factor. If a child is exposed to a relentless diet of TV and computer games and deprived of interaction at home, that is very damaging."

He said schools had neglected the issue. "Instead of being an optional add-on, communication skills should be at the heart of the primary curriculum ... speech and listening have been elbowed out of schools for literacy and numeracy for too long."

The report describes speech difficulties as the "unrecognised" problem in the education system, much as dyslexia was 20 years ago. It calls for children to be monitored and for better training for teachers, nursery workers and childcare workers.

Ministers are expected to respond to the report tomorrow with a promise of funding for a school programme that will encourage better communication skills and help teachers identify problems.

Bercow, who has a son, aged four, with speech problems associated with autism, said he was told regularly that his child's issues would "sort themselves out" in time. "It doesn't get sorted out - people have fewer options through life if they cannot speak," he said.

Virginia Beardshaw, chief executive of I CAN, a speech charity, said: "Communication is the fundamental life skill for the 21st century."

Read Boston & Norah's Schedule for this week July 7- 11th

READ BOSTON 2008 Storymobile Full Summer Schedule as a pdf. For more information, please visit www.readboston.org or call 617-918-5290.
All performances are open to the public. Each performance is about 1/2 hour in length. Sometimes, a show be even shorter if there are volunteer readers. At the end, each child gets to pick out a book to read and keep.
Contact me a few days in advance @ doochild6@aol.com if you want to meet me. I travel by bicycle when the weather permits. Look at this blog for next week's schedule. And I recommend googlemaps for directions. The Story Train ( see July 9th) is the brainchild of NOBS - a consortium of North Shore Librarians. Try Sara Collins at Manchester by The Sea Library for info or any Children's Room Librarian on the Rockport T line.

JULY 7th MONDAY
11:15AM
Wang YMCA - 8 Oak Street, West. Boston
1:15 AM
Salvation Army - 1500 Washington St., Roxbury

JULY 8th TUESDAY
10:00 AM
Log Preschool 222 Bowdoin St., Dorchester
11:15AM
Codman Square Library, 690 Washington St, Dorchester
1:15 PM
Murphy Community Center, 1 Worrell Street, Dorchester

JULY 9th WEDNESDAY
Storytrain @ 10 take the commuter rail to Rockport MA from North Station. There will be public performance @ lunch time in Rockport, MA at Millbrook Meadow. For details contact: Sara Collins 978-526-7711: scollins@mvlc.org

JULY 10th THURSDAY
10:00AM
Roxbury YMCA, 285 MLK Blvd., Roxbury MA
11:15AM
HBCooper Community Center, 1891 Washington St., Roxbury
1:15PM
Vine Street Community Center, 339 Dudley Street, Roxbury