Post for Week 6

Response to Stephen Abram's article Promoting Reading Using This 2.0 Stuff

In this article, Abram's lists suggestions for utilizing technology in your reading classroom. I would like to comment on some of these suggestions. Abram's suggests using e-books in your classroom to help supplement the classroom library when conducting book clubs. Using e-books allows the teacher to easily get multiple copies of a book for students to use. He does not mention that, as far as I know, you can't print e-books so all of the students will need a computer access. If your school provides students with laptops or classrooms are equipped with several computers, this would not be a problem, but we are not all given these luxuries. 

One great suggestion that Abram's gives is to designate a reading guru in your building or district. This could be someone who works in the district or is from the community. This person gives and writes book recommendations and reviews that the students can access online either through a school website or networking site like facebook. The students can visit the site and read reviews and even post their own. The guru can even do guest reads in classrooms to help get the students excited in new books. I think that this is a really great idea for middle and high school students. I think that a lot of students would be motivated to read if they new that their favorite coach or local celebrity is reading these same books. I think it is a really great way to make reading a community in your school. 

Post for Week 4

In response to Grace Oakley and Jenny Jay's article, "Making Time" for Reading: Factors that Influence the Success of Mulitmedia Reading in the Home. 

Wow! I found this article to be very interesting and enlightening. Oakley and Jay provided a group of students (8-11 years old) and their parents with Electronic Talking Books (ETB) and asked them to use the books at home on their computers for a period of time. After using the books at home, the students and parents were both asked to give their comments on the books.  

I was really surprised to hear some of the parents comments. Some of the parents thought that their children were wasting their time by listening to someone else read the story to them. Studies show that by listening to a fluent reader can improve a student's fluency. These children are only 8 to 11 years old. Have their parents already given up on reading to their children? One parent even commented that the books were to easy and that reading at home should be done with higher level books so that their students are improving their reading skills. How is this going to improve their reading? The parents' perception and knowledge of h ow reading skills are obtained seems to play a large role in shaping their opinions about using ETBs at home.

Not surprisingly, many of the students really enjoyed the electronic books. A couple of the students did comment that they preferred regular books because of their portability, a comment that I keep running across as I read research about electronic books. I still feel that these books can be a very engaging and motivating reading practice for these children and that providing our students, and their parents, with electronic books that can be accessed at home is a really great way of promoting reading.