Accelerated Reader

While reading the article, Stories about Struggling Readers and Technology by Rebecca Anderson and Ernest Balajthy, I found one of the stories particularly interesting. The story discussed how many teachers tend to treat technology as almost having, “magical effects on children,” (Anderson & Balajthy, 2007, pg. 541). The article specifically discussed how a community literacy program was using Accelerated Reader as their main literacy activity. Although some students may enjoy Accelerated Reader initially, this program should not be used in isolation. The article discussed how a literacy coach worked with the volunteers at the center to show how the AR books could be used to guide other literacy activities such as discussion groups.
I think this article proves that it is important for teachers to really research the technology programs they use with their students and examine their overall objectives for using the programs. It is also important that teachers do not simply use programs like Accelerated Reader alone to gain information about a students reading progress or reading level. I personally believe that Accelerated Reader can be a great program if it is used together with other literacy activities. While student teaching, the first graders in my class really enjoyed selecting their own “AR” books and getting a chance to go on the computers and demonstrate what they remembered from reading. There were incentives such as points and prizes that did motivate some students in the class to read a new book each and every night. I have also seen where the program was negative. It is easy for the teacher to use Accelerated Reader as the only basis for having a student pick a new book to read. In this case, students will begin to rely on “prizes or incentives” for reading. If teachers really want their students to enjoy reading, they must also show how reading can be enjoyable without winning a prize or getting Accelerated Reading points. Some students may also relate reading to answering multiple choice questions, if this is the main activity being used in a language arts classroom.

Anderson, R. & Balajthy, E. (2009). Stories about struggling readers and technology. The Reading Teacher, 62(6), pp. 540-542.

Authoring with Video

After reading the article, Authoring with Video found in The Reading Teacher, I loved the idea of using AWV (Authoring with Video) in order to help motivate students in writing. I have used the technique of having students write a story using a wordless picture, but found that this technique to be much more motivating for students who enjoy using technology or creating a video. Students enjoy writing when they know that their audience will include more than just their teacher. Using this technique, students will be able to share their stories in a digital format with classmates, family, and friends. In today’s technology advanced society students of all ages are already regularly viewing short videos on websites such as YouTube or creating and sharing their own digital videos on cameras and cell phones. This format allows students to watch a short digital video with no audio and create a text narrative in response to a writing prompt or task. The students use software that enters their text as a closed caption beneath the video. Additionally this technique is great for getting students to see why detail is important in their writing. When students watch a video and read the caption at the same time they see how their writing may or may not contain enough information about what is happening in the pictures. Teachers can also use their writing process to go along with other content areas or to go along with themes that are doing in the classroom. For example, in social studies class the video could relate to current events or in science could include a video clip about an endangered species or science experiment being performed. Students could even create their own videos and create narrative to go along with a silent video.
Overall I think it activity would be very motivating for students. They definitely would enjoy watching the video clips and creating words to go along with the videos. It also would reinforce reading because students could read their stories to classmates, family, and friends while sharing the completed videos. The class could even complete a story together after shooting a short video of a field trip they went on together. I think this activity would be make writing fun for students of all ages and ability levels. I also think this activity can be incorporated in any given content area; not just language arts/reading.

Strassman, B.K. & O’Connell, T. (2007). Authoring with video. The Reading Teacher. 61(4), pp. 330-333.

Technology Programs/Software for Assessments

An article I recently read in The Reading Teacher provided information about how several different types of computer software can be used in the classroom to help provide assessment information for teachers, parents, and administrators. The article discusses how Pearson Learning provides an online management system for teachers and schools using the DRA. The software allows teachers to input their students’ names and keep an ongoing track of their students’ running record scores (fluency, miscues, and comprehension scores) throughout the course of that students’ elementary school years. The information on each student can easily be generated into individual student reports or a class or school report.
The article also discusses a similar program available called Renaissance Place by Renaissance Learning that can be used to track students’ development throughout their school years. Different from the Pearson Learning product, this management system keeps track of three different levels of assessment information. The first level includes ongoing monitoring of results from Accelerated Reader, the second level has placement testing information from STAR Reading test, and the third level provides input of additional formal assessment information the school has available.
There are also computer scanning software that allows schools to process answer sheets that normally must be sent a central location to be scored. Degrees of Reading Power (DRP) tests, makes it available for teachers and school buildings to generate computer scoring reports. In addition, tests can sometimes be administered on computers. For example, STAR Reading offers CAT (computer adaptive testing). CAT shortens the time needed to take the test and the computer individually administers questions to students. The computer also determines the student’s ability level and if initial questions are answered quickly will move on the more challenging questions. If initial questions are answered incorrectly, the computer moves on to easier questions. This type of administration can save time because it avoids a teacher administering unnecessary questions.
The article also explains that there are many assessments that can be administered through the Internet. Harcourt Assessment publishes the Stanford Diagnostic Reading Test (SDRT) offers a fourth edition that provides the option of administering the test online.
Overall, I think this article provides some suggestions for districts who are deciding upon what types of assessments they would like to use with their students. Unless a school district has enough computers for each student to sit down and take an assessment online, it would be very time consuming to administer an assessment in this manner compared to the traditional paper and pencil method. I do however, feel it is important for schools to have an electronic management program that keeps track of students’ progress and make it easy for administrators to easily produce reports on individual students, grades, classes, or the overall progress of the school building.

Balajthy, E. ( 2007). Technology and current reading/literacy assessment strategies. The Reading Teacher. 61(3), pp. 240-247.

Digital Story Telling!

Digital story telling can be a great addition to the language arts classroom. Students of all ages would most likely enjoy sharing their own stories in a digital format. For students that find traditional story writing boring, the digital format would be much more motivating. Instead of simply writing a short story on a piece of paper, students can see their stories come to life by recording the stories, adding graphics, and music/sound effects. This would definitely make story writing more exciting for students. Digital story telling could be used in the language arts classroom as a way to retell students’ favorite stories in a digital format, or create stories about class field trips or projects. By having students read their own stories during the digital story telling process, students could increase their reading fluency through re-reading a familiar piece of text. Students could also work on comprehension by retelling a favorite children’s book or a book that has been read and discussed several times in class. Digital story telling could also be used as a reader response a activity in which students share their favorite parts of a story, create an alternative ending, write a letter to a character in a story, etc. There are countless possibilities. Digital story telling could even be a great way to begin a school year; having each students share information about themselves, their families, or their favorite part of summer vacation. Overall, I would love to incorporate digital story telling into my own classroom. I think it would be a great way to motivate the reluctant readers and writers in my class.

Incoporating Children's Books & Technology into Writing Workshop Mini Lessons

I found a great article for teachers looking for ways to motivate students in writing. After reading an article I found in The Reading Teacher, I was very happy to learn new resources I could use to help incorporate technology into the language arts curriculum. I have been constantly adding to my list of beneficial websites that I can use in my future educational career and found that this article gave me several new websites that I will surely use with my future students. The article listed several children’s books (for both early and more advanced readers) and then gave technology resources that could be used to teach specific writing skills and strategies during a writing workshop mini lesson for each book. Although I am familiar with writing workshop mini lessons I have never actually performed a writing workshop mini lesson myself. I felt that this article gave me several ideas of how I can incorporate writing and technology with reading and children’s literature. Some technology resources suggested by the article included using Inspiration to allow students to generate and organize their writing ideas before beginning a piece of writing and using the website www.rhymer.com to help students with writing poetry. The website includes a rhyming dictionary which helps students find a word that rhymes with another word. This makes it easy for students to look up words that often are difficult to rhyme with and still choose words that evoke clear images and meaning in their poetry. Another website the article suggests is http://gigglepoetry.com/. This website can be used during a poetry writing mini lesson to help motivate students to read and write poetry. The website allows students to read and perform silly poems and also complete their own silly poems by using fill-in-the-blank poetry forms. The article also suggested resources for teachers, such as browsing through lesson plans on http://www.readwritethink.org/, http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/home.jspnd, and http://www.emints.org/. The article also suggests visiting author’s websites to help students learn more about the authors of the books they are reading. I think this article does a very good job of laying out how technology can be easily integrated with language arts activities. It definitely allows reading to be more interactive, hands-on, and exciting for all different types of learners. By incorporating technology into language arts lessons, it will benefit students no whether they learn best through visual, audio, or kinesthetic materials and activities.

Check out the article for yourself!
Kara-Soteriou, J., Zawilinski, L., & Henry, L.A. (2007). Children’s books and technology in the classroom: A dynamic combo for supporting the writing workshop. The Reading Teacher. 60(7), pp.698-707.

Making Electronic Books to Aid in Comprehension & Fluency

After reading an article found in the Reading Teacher, I learned how e-books or interactive/ electronic story books can be a great way to help increase the comprehension of students of varying reading ability levels in an interactive and motivating manner. Although I recently created an interactive story book in my graduate level technology course, I had not realized at the time how these types of stories can be used to increase reading development in ways other than by simply using the books in a similar format to audio books or books on CD. The article shared how a second grade teacher has her students create e-books or interactive story books to aid in comprehension and fluency. After the students listen to a piece of literature and discuss the book, each student fills out a graphic organizer in which they retell the events that took place in the book. The teacher then types the students’ retellings of the story as accurately as possible without changing the students’ natural language into a slide show program on her computer and also adds digital photographs and clip art. Later, the students are given the chance to record their voices reading their retellings. The slides are then placed together into a class e-book and loaded on to the classroom computers so that students can frequently re-read and/or listen to the class book. Overall, the activity helps aid in students’ comprehension since the activity involves retelling main ideas from a piece of text and also help increase students’ overall reading fluency by having students re-read a familiar text multiple times. In my opinion this is a fantastic way to help motivate the reluctant readers in a classroom because it will be engaging for students who enjoy creating something and also allows students to use the computer. If I was to make e-books in my own future classroom, I would even allow the students to type their own retellings. I am positive that students would enjoy using computers to complete a project like this and it would be a fun way to get students to read and comprehend a piece of literature. I will definitely keep this in mind for my future classroom. I already have a great example to show my future students since I created my own e-book this year. I would love to help my future students create their own e-books based on retellings of books we read and discuss in class. It also will be a great addition to any classroom library!

Read this article too!
Rhodes, J.A., & Milby, T.M. (2007). Teacher-created electronic books: Intergreating technology to support readers with disabilities. The Reading Teacher. 61(3), pp. 255-259.