There is overwhelming evidence of a gender gap between boys and girls in reading. This is an accelerating international phenomenon. Our guest suggests that male role models and current notions of masculinity may be contributing factors. What are the implications long term? How do we close the gap? Brozo shares some field tested strategies.

Dolly Parton's Literacy initiative is called the Imagination Library project. The program gives a book a month to over 600,000 children from zero until their fifth birthday. Beginning in Tennessee, the program now reaches over 1200 communities in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Tune in and discover how this program is promoting literacy in the 21st century.

Dr. Jo Anne Deshon's creative application of basic and new literacy skills won her a Presidential award. In this segment Dr. Deshon underscores the link between literacy and excellence in science and shares her strategies for using reading, writing, email and podcasting to effectively engage children.

It's a new world out there requiring some new skills as well as many of the tried and tested fundamentals for developing literacy. In this segment Patricia Edwards shares with us some of the "next practices" in preparing children for literacy.