Contact:
Christel Henke
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chenke@hansondodge.com

For Immediate Release

ASQ Offers New Quality Book for Kids

Claire Anne and the Talking Hat Helps Make Learning Easier

Milwaukee, Wis., October 9, 2008 — It’s a scene played out by many students each day. A lack of concentration and incomplete homework—the frustration that school is ‘just too hard’ and low confidence in their ability to succeed. A new children’s book called Claire Anne and the Talking Hat takes a unique approach to reaching kids using quality concepts that can make school work easier and learning more fun. The book is published by the American Society for Quality (ASQ), the leading quality improvement association in the United States.

The book is authored by Barbara Cleary, a 30-year K-12 teacher and mother of four sons. Claire Anne and the Talking Hat is a 26-page book written for children in first through fifth grade who need help to become more effective, self-directed learners. This brightly-illustrated book follows Claire Anne, an imaginative young student, who along with her friends and the help of Manny the bird and Martin the mouse, learns how to use learning tools that help her to become more organized and focused. The happy ending for Claire Anne is improved grades and an increased confidence that she can do well in school.

ASQ, which trains K-12 schools throughout the country on how to apply quality tools and concepts to improve student achievement, teamed with Cleary to create this book as a way to talk directly with students about how learning tools can help them do even better in school.

"This creative children’s story demonstrates in a humorous yet effective way how younger students can use the same tools employed by companies like Toyota and Boeing to improve their own academic success," said Roberto Saco, president of ASQ.

Teachers, parents and students will find that Claire Anne and the Talking Hat is a great supplement to building 21st century skills like problem solving, critical thinking, creativity and teamwork.  Families will want this book at home to encourage these skills with their children. Claire Anne and the Talking Hat can be purchased by ASQ members for $9.95 and by nonmembers for $16.95 by visiting The ASQ Store on the ASQ Web site.

Author Barbara Cleary is a teacher at The Miami Valley School, an independent school in Dayton, Ohio. She is also principal owner and corporate vice president of Productivity-Quality Systems, a major international process and quality management firm. She is also the co-author of Thinking Tools for Kids: An Activity Book for Classroom Learning (ASQ Quality Press, 2008) and Orchestrating Learning with Quality (ASQ Quality Press 1995). The book is illustrated by Mike Kasun.
 

The American Society for Quality, www.asq.org, has been the world’s leading authority on quality for more than 60 years. With more than 90,000 individual and organizational members, the professional association advances learning, quality improvement and knowledge exchange to improve business results, and to create better workplaces and communities worldwide. As champion of the quality movement, ASQ offers technologies, concepts, tools and training to quality professionals, quality practitioners and everyday consumers, encouraging all to Make Good Great&trade. ASQ has been the sole administrator of the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award since 1991. Headquartered in Milwaukee, Wis., ASQ is a founding partner of the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), a prominent quarterly economic indicator, and also produces the Quarterly Quality Report.