A passionate literacy advocate, I was alarmed by the literacy statistic among the deaf, and now I’ve begun raising support for education for deaf children. Upon the release of my Danny the Dragon DREAMS, the proceeds of my Danny the Dragon DVD, which features a signed reading of the book for deaf children, will be donated to the local deaf children’s school, Blossom’s Montessori School for the Deaf in Clearwater, Florida. I’m  very happy that I’m able to do something to improve deaf education!

Tina Turbin

     First, make sure your child is well-rested and well-fed. A well-balanced diet, with nutritious meals at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and healthy snacks after school, has been shown to improve academic performance in children. Kids also need to be well-rested in order to focus during the day.

     Next, take advantage of every opportunity to meet your child’s teachers, such as parent-teacher or open-school nights. Not only will you make sure you’re not missing vital information, such as what the teacher expects of your child’s homework assignments, but you’ll show your child and his teachers that you care about his education.

     Familiarize yourself with your child’s daily routine by making a copy of his schedule. If you know gym class is on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, you can make sure your child brings his gym clothes on these days.

     Check your child’s backpack and planner to make sure you see teacher’s notes, important dates, permission slips, and graded assignments and tests. You prevent your child’s embarrassment in school by making sure your child is prepared for the special events and activities you’ll find out about through your backpack inspections and can provide your child with help for anything you find he may need help with.

     Stay connected with other parents. Sometimes your child’s perception of what’s occurring in the classroom may not be accurate, or perhaps your child hasn’t been mentioning some essential information. By forming connections with other parents, you can ensure that you’re not missing out on vital data.

As an active literacy advocate, I do as much as I can to get kids reading to revert the literacy statistic of this country. However, it wasn’t until recently that I became aware of another alarming statistic—the literacy rate among deaf children.

     The average deaf child is diagnosed at two or three years of age for hearing loss. This means that there is a good chance that his language development has been severely affected, as the child may have been missing large portions of spoken language, if not all auditory experience, that hearing children get from birth. What’s worse, the demand for academic achievement among deaf children is lower than for other children, resulting in learning and home environments which aren’t as focused on reading. With an upbringing that doesn’t emphasize language and literature, it is difficult to expect deaf children to perform at the same analytic and linguistic levels as other children.

     That’s why I have created the signed reading of Danny the Dragon Meets Jimmy DVD, all the profits for which are going to supporting the amazing school I visited, Blossom Montessori. Its Montessori education encourages imagination and allows for real-life applications of subjects learned in the classroom. By supporting schools such as Blossom Montessori School for the Deaf, I know I am truly contributing toward reverting the deaf literacy statistic and enriching the lives of many bright children.

I had the wonderful pleasure of visiting many schools this month as well as received MANY pictures submitted to the site and to my e mail at info@dannythedragon.com.

We have another winner for the November gift basket! Here she is:

Here is what our wonderful 3rd grade winner, Paulina has to say:

Dear Ms. Turbin,
I am Paulina Kapuscinska and I go to 3rd grade at Highland Lakes Elementry
School in Palm Harbor. I like to make arts, crafts, and drawings. I had fun
making the picture of the dragon in the library because I like dragons and
dinosaurs. I liked the book about Danny the Dragon a lot. I also have a
favorite stuffed animal dinosaor that I go to sleep with.
I am really happy that I had a chance to win the contest.
Thank you,
Paulina

Look at what is happening tomorrow at Sunset Park Elementary School behind

Disney, in none other than lovely Florida!

Sunset Park Elementary School, located in Windermere, Florida, welcomes author Tina Turbin to share her Danny the Dragon book with over 500 students, teachers, and parents. She will sharing her work with large groups and will talk about what it is like to write children’s books. In January, Danny the Dragon will make a return appearance when the school cafeteria celebrates “Appreciate a Dragon Day”- January 16th, so mark your calendars.

We are thankful to have stumbled upon Ms. Turbin’s character building and nutritionally themed works and can’t wait for the kids to be introduced to the delightful characters!

Sunset park Elementary

Boy oh boy, Danny has me busy folks. There is so much happening and such wonderful people reaching out to us to come to schools, events, hospitals and venues. My books are spreading out there and landing in some lovely venues for sale. Thank you everyone!

I am heading to Los Angeles right after my very popular  Halloween Cupcake Party Danny and I are hosting with a terrific team a children and parent bakers. I only have 100% Gluten-Free Parties! Pamela’s Products, is sponsoring this event in support of my efforts and my interest to help Dr. Peter Green at the Celiac Disease Center. This amazing man correctly diagnosed about 2500 celiac patients last year alone and the year before and the year before that…. Need I say more?

All of this will be filmed on October 24th, Saturday. Check your Tampa, St Pete .and Clearwater newspapers, check the internet and check out  http://is.gd/4pYn1 for specifics. ( Los Angeles cupcake party will be announced before the end of this year too!) I invite you to join in the fun and support my this Cause.

Please contact me via the contact page if you are interested.Id love to have you join. We have limited spaces available but I was told this week-end we can take a few more kids and moms, since I really want to bake and decorate a load of gluten free cup-cakes for everyone to take home. Yummy!

Thank you Everyone for your support and good wishes, Tina Turbin and Danny

Danny the Dragon has a home on YouTube, including a beautiful video of various images from our 2009 Book Tour to schools, hospitals and libraries.

Many more videos to come, but in the meantime, please visit the following link and drop us a comment (and a 5-star vote!) so that we know what you think of the video!