Kia Ora from Auckland!

Dear Friends, Colleagues, and Family,

We have arrived safely in Auckland, New Zealand and have been here for two days! First of all - the flight! Although long, we were able to get enough sleep on the plane to not be too sleepy on our first day here! Jet lag has not set in... so far... and we are not anticipating its arrival any time soon. We were served two meals on the plane. They were tasty and unexpected! After arriving in Auckland, we found a cab and headed to our hotel, the Sky City Hotel in downtown Auckland. We were very surprised at how cold it was! Being from Chicago, we thought we knew what cold weather was. I guess we were so used to the warm weather we had been experiencing in Chicago that our bodies didn't have time to adjust. But, we are adjusting fine as we have been here in Auckland for two days now.

On our first day, we reminded ourselves that it was now Monday, July 12th and began to explore the area around our hotel, as check-in wouldn't be until 11:00 at the earliest. Auckland reminded us of the Seattle area with its hilly roads, rolling green land, and wide water front. The downtown area is pretty compact. We went to McDonald's for breakfast, or should I say brekkie, and watched Spain win the World Cup with all the other fans in the restaurant. Then, we checked out a shopping center spent some time at Borders buying bilingual Maori books and non-fiction text about New Zealand.

The New Zealand International Film Festival was going on (and is still going on). We stopped into the box office and bought a ticket for a documentary called The Rainbow Warriors of Waiheke Island. The documentary focused on a Green Peace boat called The Rainbow Warrior. It was used to stop Icelandic whalers and to transport individuals from a Pacific Island that had developed health problems due to nuclear testing. After the movie, we were introduced to two of the Green Peace workers who were on The Rainbow Warrior, along with the film maker. What a great opportunity! Next week we will be exploring Waiheke Island, so this was a great introduction!

Finally, we were able to check into our hotel and relax before the opening ceremony of the World Congress. The opening ceremony of the World Congress was an inspirational event, with speakers from the International Reading Association, the Auckland Reading Association, the New Zealand Reading Association, and a performance by Maori dancers from Rosebank School! The event closed with a reception. After watching some New Zealand television, we ended our first day anticipating what we would learn in the days that would follow!

Today, we woke up with no jet lag and were excited to attend our workshops at the World Congress. The opening general session was lead by Stuart McNaughton, a professor at the University of Auckland. His presentation, titled Cautious Optimism: Can Pressing Literacy Challenges Be Solved?, focused on the achivement gap, raising overall literacy levels, and how we might approach achieving equitable literacy levels for children from groups traditionally not served well by schools. He commented on the out of school factors (OSFs) that influence our students' literacy achievement and that we should empower ourselves to make a difference in those areas where we can and to not view OSFs as excuses for ineffective teaching. Ultimately, we must further develop our pedagogical knowledge so that we can meet the needs of our diverse students.

We continued our day attending sessions and being well-fed. We had morning tea, lunch, and afternoon tea! Sometimes we attended sessions together, and other times we split off. Jennifer's sessions focused on literacy professional development issues and the impact of Reading Recovery in New Zealand. Pilar's sessions focused on using multi-cultural trade books in math and how one school used writing and art to share their culture with a school in England. Together, we attended a fantastic workshop focused on vocabulary instruction strategies. We even wrote a fantastic infomercial for the word pseudonym and performed it for the group! Now, we are back in our room getting some rest and looking forward to a Poetry Olio that will be held tonight! Looking forward to more learning tomorrow!