Some readers struggle to make meaning and there is new help at hand.  Whether with a guitar and environmental print, with video or with music, the arts are gaining popularity to regain and maintain the interest of students who otherwise might not engage in class.

On a feature on Democracy Now today, 4th of July, 2014…….Pete Seeger is remembered and paraphrased here..... "the world may be saved and the people's causes" by "teaspoons", "tiny actions", and "women who teach children reading".

These teaspoons may just be the terrific new products and websites worthy of listening, viewing, considering, following, and exploring that impact reading and thought development in the young and old.

They have many themes some teach curtesy, curious, compassion and respect. 

Others are books, technologies, strategies, and tools, programs, and deliverables that are aimed at reading success.  Here are a bevy of some of these interventions:

Interactivity….at risk readers struggle with sounding out the words…making reading fun by manipulating sounds….

http://www.buttonsoundbook.com/site/595626/page/143632

Making it fun to help children form sounds correctly with their mouths and as they decode letters from symbol to sound:

http://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/for-home/reading-owl/expert-help/helping-struggling-readers

Creating informal book clubs as a reading strategy:

http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/104428/chapters/The-Struggling-Reader.aspx

Ipads can teach through phonics and interactive manipulation…sight, sound, touch…

http://www.teachthought.com/apps-2/20-ipad-apps-to-teach-elementary-reading/

Youngsters are songmapping and dancing to read with Songworks:

http://www.oberlin.edu/library/digital/songworks/principles.html

Some students learn best from archives (Pacifica Archives) or from mixed media (Pete Seeger: The Storm King on Hachette):

https://www.facebook.com/PeteSeegerTheStormKing

Older students need to map to meaning:

http://www.ldonline.org/article/8025/

This can happen directly through writing like (916 Ink) in Sacramento where children create through writing ….

Another strategy is reading with a sound track below…

http://freetrial.lernerbooks.com/assets/Lerner-Interactive-White-Paper.pdf

What ever way you help a young reader whether through the help of inspiration, reading "Malcolm Little" by Simon and Schuster about history and Malcolm X or about Bicycles and recycling by a DC indie writer and dialogic reading on Cyclovia day….or you listen to a distinguished artist, recording engineer and trusted producer for Pete Seeger, Jeff Haynes, Audie Winner….available from Hachette Audio Books…..

This is the time librarians and early Christmas buyers will be looking for ways to make struggling readers fall in love with books and reading….

It may happen through spoken word audio, reading aloud, discussing, play acting, finding something that has personal meaning, or finding someone who listens carefully and encourages…..

When an idea is formed from a word, fireworks of joy impact the nervous system, and whether it's the wonder of hearing great music with Seeger's words and hearing more deeply (Komunyaka Music Inc. production on Hachette) or seeing the Hudson on the Metro North and seeking out the tall ships…whatever  a young reader/learner's pleasure that came from publishers, educator, researchers, and innovator's hard work….

The pictures, sounds, and rhythms will draw young minds in and from there they will learn words and what they signify. 

"words have the power to move people, to make them laugh, cry, feel and think….and most important …the more words you lean, the better you can communicate, and the more in life you can create" paraphrase from Ilyasha Shabazz's new children's book about the childhood and values of "The Boy who grew up to become Malcolm X" (a book dedicated to the cultural values of her father and grandparents).

Find a way to support your young reader whether with books, recordings, mixed media, singing, drawing them out and exploring how they/he/or she makes meaning.  For teachers, look for " Creating Meaning through Literature and the Arts" by Pearson.