My guest today is Mary Click. She is the National Intergenerational Tutoring Director for the Oasis Institute, a nonprofit educational organization that promotes healthy aging through lifelong learning, active lifestyles, and service.

Oasis Intergenerational Tutoring has positively impacted over 525,000 children since its inception in 1989, and has been implemented in more than 100 school districts across the country. The award-winning volunteer program pairs older adults with children in grades K-3 to work one-on-one each week not only as tutors, but as mentors and positive role models.

In her role with Oasis, Mary is responsible for developing resources to support the tutoring program in nine Oasis centers and independent sites in twenty cities. Mary collaborates closely with school district administrators, school district facilitators, and the Oasis network tutoring staff to serve volunteer tutors participating in the program. She previously served as the St. Louis Tutoring Manager and held other project management roles during her 15-year tenure at The Oasis Institute.

In this conversation, Mary and I talk about the importance of childhood literacy, how schools have changed over the last few decades, how reading impacts kids in many different ways, and how you can get involved as a tutor.

To explore how to get involved as a tutor, visit https://oasis.net/tutoring.

The post Tutoring Director Mary Click on Childhood Literacy and Changing Kids’ Lives Through Mentoring appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

My guest today is Professor Anne Sheridan, and she’s going to help take the intimidation factor out of reading classic literature. Anne is an educator, a pastor’s wife, and a mother of three girls living in Davenport, Iowa. She has undergraduate degrees in Piano Performance and English, a graduate certificate in Biblical Studies, and an MA in English.

Anne has several years of experience teaching at the college level, with courses on Speech, English Composition, English Literature, and Christian Fantasy Literature. She enjoys reading in community and helping students to discover and appreciate the joys of reading.

Anne and I talk about what makes a classic a “classic,” why you shouldn’t feel intimidated by literature, how to distinguish between different genres, why Shakespeare was so great, how to make time to read, and of course… Star Wars, a topic that seems to make an appearance on my podcast every few interviews or so.

You can connect with Anne on Twitter @A_L_Sheridan.

The post Professor Anne Sheridan on Why You Should Read Classic Literature appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

We have a plethora of ways to gain knowledge today, including podcasts, ebooks, audiobooks, video courses, and so much more. But none of these learning sources compare to good old-fashioned books. When you engage with a great book, you enter into a sustained dialogue with the author. You take a journey you cannot get any other way.

So make reading books a habit. The mode doesn’t matter as much as the fact that you are reading them. Ebooks, print books, audiobooks—they all lead to the same result.

Reading will help you connect the dots, spur new ideas, fill in the gaps in your knowledge, and inspire you to keep writing. Aside from consistent writing, reading is the habit that will nourish and expand your seeds of ideas into a bountiful harvest later on.

Question: Are you making time to read each day?

The post Watering: Read Books for Nourishment appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

In your writing life, you will find that it’s easy to let go of some things, and much harder to let go of others. One of the items it’s difficult to let go of is books. After all, you’re a writer… why would you get rid of books?

The reality is that we fill our lives with clutter, especially in the modern world where we have so much access to almost everything we could ever want. But when you consider the books on your shelf, some of them were relevant to your life a decade or two ago, but they no longer have a place. You have outgrown the ideas in those books. You have moved on. And every time you see those books, you feel guilty because you know you don’t need them any longer, but you just can’t bring yourself to let them go.

It’s hard to hear, but true: you can’t make room for new ideas or new blessings in your life if you keep on hanging onto books that no longer serve your vision.

When you pass along those books to someone who can benefit from them, you not only free up space in your office or home, you also bless someone else. In fact, you are doing a disservice to a book if you hang onto it after it’s no longer relevant to your life.

A book WANTS to bless others, so the best thing you can do is pass it along. It’s not meant to be a collector’s item—it’s meant to change people. So give your books a chance to do that by giving them away to friends, donating them to goodwill, or selling them.

It’s OK to recognize the value something has had in your life, then let it go. When you do, you will make room for new and more relevant books that can take you to whatever destination you are going.

The post It’s Time to Let Go of Some Books appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

As we talked about yesterday, you need to have a system where you can plant or store all the thoughts, information, and ideas you will use as raw material for writing. And while that is an important start, you need to water these tiny seeds so they can grow into something useful.

There are all kinds of ways to explore your curiosity and seek knowledge, but none of them compare to reading. We have a plethora of ways to gain knowledge today, including podcasts, ebooks, audiobooks, videos, courses, and so much more.

But none of these learning sources compare to good old-fashioned books. When you engage with a great book, you enter into a sustained dialogue with the author. You take a journey you cannot get any other way.

So make reading books a habit. The mode doesn’t matter as much as the fact that you are reading them. Ebooks, print books, audiobooks—they all lead to the same result.

Reading will help you connect the dots, spur new ideas, fill in the gaps of your knowledge, and inspire you to keep writing. Aside from consistent writing, reading is the habit that will nourish and expand your seeds of ideas into a bountiful harvest later on.

The post Watering: Read Books for Nourishment appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

I’ve talked before about the importance of taking a book everywhere you go. One way to maximize your creativity and productivity even more, when it comes to reading, is to read two books simultaneously: one for education, and one for pleasure.

Of course, reading at all is fantastic, but when you read two books concurrently, the cross-pollination can spark creative ideas you would not have otherwise.

It’s probably not realistic to flit back and forth between five or ten books, reading a bit of each one before reading a bit of another one. But two books? You can do that.

Even if you just read for ten minutes a day, those few minutes of filling your mind with good material will pay off hugely. After all, if you want to write books, you must first be a person who reads them.

The post The Two-Book Approach to Reading appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

There is something quite magical about a book. Of course, you already know that since you’re a writer. You’re already committed to the art and craft of writing books.

But it’s interesting that so many writers don’t make a lot of time to read. We love books and are committed to creating them… but we struggle with fitting reading into our schedules.

Reading is a critical part of the creative process. Of course, we need to have other inputs as well, such as listening to great talks, watching videos and movies, seeing plays, and other ways to experience great art. But above all, we must read.

Here is a very simple method for reading more: take a book everywhere you go. Now, the truth is that if you have a smartphone and the Kindle app, you are already taking books with you. But let’s assume that you prefer reading print books, as most writers do.

It may seem strange to carry a book with you everywhere, but it works. Think of all the little spare moments you have throughout the day. Ten minutes here while you’re waiting to pick up your kid from school. Fifteen minutes there while you’re waiting to get your license renewed at the DMV. Five minutes here when you’re waiting for your husband or wife in the store. Twenty minutes there before your next Zoom call.

Mark Twain famously said, “A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read.” You don’t necessarily need to block off huge chunks of time during the day to read. There are plenty of little moments here and there that will add up to thirty or even sixty minutes a day when you can expand your mind and fill your creative well with the amazing power of reading.

The post Reading is Critical to Your Creativity appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.