iPods To Play Audio Books To Help Struggling Readers - Part 2

I am a fourth-grade teacher in an inclusive classroom where 30% of the children have learning and emotional disabilities. The main academic area these children struggle with is reading. Many of my students have entered the fourth grade with their reading level two to three years behind, and the only books available to them on their level are on subject matters that do not connect with ten year olds and are seen as babyish. Although these students are not motivated to read books on their own level independently, they are motivated to listen to and read along to books that I read aloud to the class. Through these read alouds they build their reading fluency and comprehension of more difficult texts. Knowing that this love of listening to literature is a motivator, I thought, how can I take this passion of listening to good literature and use it to help motivate these children to read independently? So I experimented with downloading audio books that I borrowed from the local library or downloaded from the iTunes music store onto our classroom computer. I then started inviting the struggling readers to plug in, listen to, and read along to these audio books. This was an instant hit, and now these children are reading books independently (with audio support) that are on the same level as their classmates. They are also the first to ask, "Can I do some reading today?" The only problem with this program is that I have to schedule my struggling readers' time on one classroom computer. If I were to have a small class set of iPods, I could download a collection of audio books onto them and create audio book clubs. These would be clubs where groups of children listen to the same audio books as a group during independent reading and then break into book talks on what they read. This will help build a community of readers in the entire classroom and give the struggling readers the exposure to rich literature that they so crave, while helping to improve their reading ability. I am submitting this proposal in a few parts to request pairs of iPods to phase in this program in my classroom. Two iPods have already been fully funded by generous donors through Donors choose. I am now looking for two additional iPods to make a complete classroom set. Thank you for choosing to donate and help struggling readers build their fluency and exposure to great literature!