My students need 6 Sony ereaders in order to increase and improve their reading, as well as collect data on how many pages and minutes they are reading.
"In the digital classroom the classroom comes alive!"
The above quote was found on Teleread.com. Digital literacy has arrived, and is here to stay. I want my classroom to be alive with conversations and rewards around books and reading. I believe that using digital literacy can accomplish that.
Our Maine school district is a resettlement community for Catholic Charities.
Our students speak 54 different languages and range from fluent English, to newcomers who cannot communicate at all in English. Most of my students receive free or reduced lunch. Reading, as one can imagine, is difficult. Recently I began using a new program in reading which has helped immensely in increasing reading scores. One of the key motivators in the program is the student's ability to receive constant data on their progress. But one of the weakest areas has been their read to self time. It is difficult to really know how much reading they are doing, how many pages they have really read, and if indeed they are understanding all that they read. There also is very little real data to use. Last year they started asking to use my e-reader app on my ipad. I realized that digital literacy would provide an enthusiasm, a motivation, and an accountability for my students.
My Project
Kobo has a wonderful program called Reader's Life. It keeps track of how many pages are read, how many books are completed, and how many minutes are being spent reading. This data will motivate my students to read more. ALso, those students who are reading far below grade level do not need to suffer embarrassment in their classrooms because no one can see the level of the books they are reading. I really believe in this time of technology that we need to provide these kinds of incentives for students to want to read. I have obtained 5 Kobo e-readers, and with 6 more I can provide most of my students with their own e-reader to use so they can keep track of their reading life. I will be asking my PTO to provide 2 more and then I will purchase two with my own money if necessary so that every child in my Read 180 class has access to their own e-reader for the year. Lastly, my students can write "notes" in their books and these can be shared amongst the other students in the classroom.
How cool would it be for my students, who have so little, to be able to carry up to 100 books around with them to read at all times?
How cool will it be for my young developing readers to be able to read my notes to them, and their friends notes about books they are reading together. And how amazing will it be for my students to watch their reading skills skyrocket because they have constant access to a form of reading that makes them beg for more reading time?
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