myON

myON offers thousands of books tailored to kids' interests and Lexile reading levels. Access your account by selecting Chase Street Elementary as your school. Enter your six digit lunch number for the username and password.

2016 Decatur Book Festival

What do Jacqueline Woodson (Show Way), Dav Pilkey (Captain Underpants) and Sara Pennypacker (Pax and Clementine) have in common? They'll be speaking at this year's Decatur Book Festival! Book lovers of all ages will occupy downtown Decatur September 2-4. Click here for a full list of children's fiction authors who will be there. Here's a little information from decaturbookfestival.com...

The AJC Decatur Book Festival is the largest independent book festival in the country and one of the five largest overall. Since its launch, more than 1,000 world-class authors and hundreds of thousands of festival-goers have crowded the historic downtown Decatur square to enjoy book signings, author readings, panel discussions, an interactive children's area, live music, parades, cooking demonstrations, poetry slams, writing workshops, and more.  

 

Close and Critical Reads

Close reading is when a person dives deeper into a text to figure out what it all means. How does this connect to something else I have read? What is the main idea? How are the author's ideas organized? What are some of the key words I need to understand, and how are they related?

Critical reading occurs when that person digs even deeper into the text. How do I feel about what I just read? What is the author not saying? Does this have anything to do with me? How does the author feel? Does the author do a good job in communicating their ideas? If I was the author, what would I do differently? How does this connect to the world around me? Can I figure out motivation? What questions do I still have?

The human mind is like a lightbulb. Even when the lightbulb is on, it can become dusty and dim. When someone can read a piece of text, the lightbulb is on. They recognize the letters and words, but they can't really see what it means because everything is a bit dark. Reading closely and critically dusts off the lightbulb. When it shines brightly, the person sees and understands how the world really works. Click the the image above, or right here to begin dusting off your lightbulb.