April was a busy month — so busy, in fact, that I haven’t had time to write about all the great activities I was involved with! I plan to catch up on my blog posts now that I have a little time to breathe.

One of my April activities was giving a presentation titled, Who’s the Fairest of Them All?: Using Fairytales and Folktales to Celebrate Diversity, at the 2013 Virginia State Reading Association (VSRA) conference on April 20th in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

I was able to spend time with a great friend and former colleague and hear some interesting presentations on teaching strategies that I will incorporate in my literacy courses this fall. But, one of the most special moments was running into two of my brightest former students. They are both in graduate school to become reading specialists and were at VSRA presenting their own research — this made me feel very proud (and old)! Way to go, Blake and Brandi!

I have two presentations coming up in June. First, I will be co-presenting with my BC colleague, Dr. Jean Hawk, at the Copenhaver Institute at Roanoke College. Our presentation is titled, Cinderella 2.0: Using Instructional Technology and Traditional Literature to Improve Critical Reading Skills. Later in June, I will give a presentation at JMU’s Content Teaching Academy titled, Create, Publish, Read!: Using Digital Books to Improve Literacy and Engage and Support Diverse Learners.