by Marjie Podzielinski

Recently, my fifth grade students and I were able to log into a live Scholastic webinar and watch J.K. Rowling in Scotland read Harry Potter aloud. What a remarkable feat for my students. Webinars can really bring the world alive to students and teachers alike.

I started with Scholastic webinars last year when there was an author panel with Kirby Larson, Lois Lowry, and Andrea Pinkney. My “lunch bunch” students brought their lunches to the library and enjoyed this author visit for the DEAR AMERICA series. This launched their reading for all of the DEAR AMERICA books throughout the year. Scholastic also has webinars for continuing education, covering all sorts of topics that teachers need in today’s classrooms. These can be watched at your leisure and can be used for continuing education credit. Many help highlight topics from the Common Core. On October 24, my fourth graders watched Taylor Swift launch her Read Every Day campaign. They loved learning that she has always been a reader and writer.

DiscoveryEducation also offers a variety of webinars.

I was able to participate in the Big CleanUp with Philippe Cousteau in June. This was a call to action for student’s to participate in cleaning up our planet. Watching the webinars live is so fun because participants keep a running dialog during the event that provide teaching ideas while the speaker is talking. You are inter-acting with students and teachers all over the world.  Integrating this into class instruction broadens the horizons of all our students.

Also, edweb.net is an online community for sharing with educators all around the world. Webinars are offered on a variety of subjects and are archived for later viewing. These also include technology sessions which are so important for our students.

Booklist Online provides a variety of webinars, The topics range on reluctant readers, Common Core State Standards, Graphic Novels, and other ways to engage readers in your classroom. It is a wonderful way to hear about the latest books being offered by publishers. You merely register with an email address. The login info will be delivered to your mailbox. If you cannot attend on the date of the webinar a follow up email will come with how to access the archived webinar. If I miss a session during the week I can always make it up later.

I highly recommend that you add webinars to your own professional development. With tight budgets they avoid the costs of travel and hotel expenses. Experts in the field are sharing their knowledge and expertise, all from your computer. These sessions will enlighten your students and yourself.

Marjie Podzielinski is a librarian at Coulson Tough School in The Woodlands, Texas. 

This article is part of a series from the International Reading Association Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).

The International Reading Association offers recordings of webinars from our Common Core State Standards series. This series included presenters Elfrieda (Freddy) H. Hiebert, Lesley Mandel Morrow, Timothy Rasinski, Nell K. Duke, Timothy Shanahan, Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and Diane Lapp. Visit the IRA webinar webpage for more information.

by Kimberly Kimbell-Lopez

If you want to begin using educational apps (short for applications) to supplement your classroom instruction, then the selection task can definitely be overwhelming. You need either an iPad, iPhone, iTouch, Droid, tablet, or other similar device. It is relatively easy to download apps to your device by accessing the Apple App Store in iTunes. When you sync your device with iTunes, then the new apps you selected are automatically downloaded. There are thousands of apps that can be downloaded using the Apple App store with the prices ranging from free up to five dollars or more. Many of the apps can also be used with multiple devices.

If you are trying to make more books available for your students, then iBooks can be used to download classical works all the way to contemporary stories. The benefits of using iBooks or other eReader is that students can adjust the print size to make the text easier to read, they can click on words to get help with meaning, and they can add notes or highlights to emphasize key information. Do you want to access books at no cost? Free Books is an app that makes available 23,469 free books and documents from the public domain.

Keynote and Pages are great apps to use for authoring journal entries, stories, poetry, and other texts. General storytelling apps that students will have fun exploring include Build a Story, Storyrobe, and Strip Design. Are you interested in apps to support sight word instruction? Popular programs include K-3 Sight Words, Play Sight Words, Sight Words, and Smiley Sight Words. Are you more interested in apps that develop vocabulary? Your students can try out Montessori Crosswords, Opposite Ocean, Same Meaning Magic, Same Sound SpellBound, The Opposites, and SAT Vocab Cards. Working on parts of speech? Try MadLibs and Word Sorts.

Harmon (2012) states that “no other pedagogical tool or technique in my experience engages students in a way that makes learning fun and leaves students feeling like they are in control of their own learning” (p. 30). However, as the transition is made into using innovative technology resources, we have to carefully consider how a particular app can enhance or supplement instruction. We should not simply use apps as babysitters, but instead use the Apps with a specific plan in mind, (e.g., practice a skill, access information, or create a product) (Hertz, 2012).

If you have something specific in mind you need for your classroom, then there really is probably an app for that. Get started today exploring the world of apps!

References

Harmon, J. (2012). Unlock literacy with iPads. Learning & Leading with Technology, 39, pp. 30-31.

Hertz, 2012. Apps in the elementary classroom. Edutopia. Retrieved October 26, 2012 from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/apps-elementary-classroom-mary-beth-hertz.

Kimberly Kimbell-Lopez, Ed.D., is the Hubberd H. & Velma Horton Boucher Endowed Professor in the Department of Curriculum, Instruction, and Leadership in the College of Education at Louisiana Tech University.

This article is part of a series from the International Reading Association Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).

by Elizabeth Bleacher

Building off the success of their online, computer-based interactives, ReadWriteThink has developed their first mobile application for tablet devices. ReadWriteThink’s Trading Cards mobile app was developed as a classroom tool to help students summarize what they’ve learned. Teachers can use it across content areas, and students are motivated to demonstrate comprehension on any topic through the familiar, fun format.

Trading Cards is ideal for students in grades 3-8 and is a great way to integrate technology into the classroom. Lesson plans that integrate the app can be found at ReadWriteThink.org.

First, students are prompted to create a username. This feature gives students a way to store their work and helps to prevent accidental deletions by other students sharing the same device. The User Manager allows teachers the ability to restore any accidental username deletions within a two-week period.

Once logged in under their username, students select a card category from a host of options: real or fictional person, real or fictional place, object, event, or vocabulary. This varied selection of categories allows the app to be used for everything from character biographies to personal cards for icebreaker activities. The vocabulary card is a great tool for studying STEM and content area vocabulary words.

Each section of the card has guiding questions that relate to the chosen category. The questions progress in difficulty as students complete the card. Initial questions are rather literal, but later questions require more critical thinking from the student. Since the text fields have a limited number of characters, students are challenged to be concise with their responses. This will help them pull out the most critical information while also considering the information’s larger implications within the text.

Students can customize their card by adding a photo and by changing the design of the card. Once completed, students can save their work to the device, send it as an e-mail, or print it.

Trading cards can be grouped together in collections or left as individual cards. Card collections allow students to organize their learning into categories of their choosing.

The app takes advantage of intuitive touch-screen movements, allowing most students to manipulate the screens with ease. However, instructional tips aid students who may be unfamiliar with tablet devices. This easy and engaging format helps promote the app’s appeal inside and outside of the classroom.

Trading Cards is available for free on iTunes, and the free Android version is coming soon.

The International Reading Association partners with the National Council of Teachers of English and Verizon Thinkfinity to produce ReadWriteThink.org, a website devoted to providing literacy instruction and interactive resources for grades K–12. ReadWriteThink presents teachers with effective lesson plans and strategies, a professional community, and engaging online interactive student tools.

Elizabeth Bleacher is the strategic communications intern at the International Reading Association.

by Denise H. Stuart

In many classrooms today teachers are responding to learner’s needs through differentiated instruction where they offer respectful tasks, flexible grouping and ongoing assessment and adjustment (Tomlinson and Allan, 2000). They may vary content in using texts at multiple reading levels, process through a variety of activities and product as students are encouraged to express what they learned in varied ways, often of their choice. The use of digital text with e-readers may be a powerful tool to facilitate differentiating instruction in the classroom, especially with student-centered literacy approaches such as Book Clubs and Literature Circles where groups of learners are reading and responding to the same or different texts.

Using today’s ubiquitous technologies has emerged as a way to engage and motivate readers. In a case study of two readers of diverse reading levels and linguistic backgrounds Larson (2010) describes how the features of the e-reader provided individual support as they read and responded to literature. Larson concluded that “digital readers show promise in supporting struggling readers through multiple tools and features” (p. 21). Beyond the portability, ease of access and adjustments to font, e-readers have features to support comprehension. Readers can look up the meanings of words or phonetic spellings to “sound out” unknown words using the built-in dictionary. The text-to-speech feature can be activated to listen to challenging words or passages. Readers can create digital bookmarks or use the highlighter feature in preparation for sharing passages with others. Some e-readers support students in making notes or comments that can be shared on others’ devices in their e-reader book club.

In order to assess and plan for differential use of e-reader features ReadWriteThink offers an instrument, the Digital Reader Tools and Features Anecdotal Record for teachers to review what their readers are using and make decisions about what instruction to offer for continued use of the e-book. In the featured author section of the site Lotta Larson shares her experiences with e-readers and links to a series of detailed lesson ideas using e-readers for engaged reading, vocabulary development, response activity and online discussion. A comparative chart developed on ReadWriteThink offers Suggested e-Book Resources.

Media specialist at the NIHF STEM middle school, Susan Hall implements differentiated book clubs with e-readers. Learners in “Book Club Café” receive additional support through read alouds, ongoing focused discussion, conferencing and explicit instruction as needed. Hall notes e-readers function to respect and perhaps protect learners from displaying what their peers might consider low level reading material. Learners in the “Book Bistro” read the same book independently and join book discussions of focused prompts or recommend books to be read with open-ended questions. A group of independent readers each selects a different text to read and choose their own topics to be discussed. Susan describes these as “Socratic discussions” where they ask the big questions like “what is reality?” She considers starting a graphic novel book club for all interested. Her students are developing both platform and text preferences in reading as they use a variety of features and e-readers, from apps on laptops and smart phones to popular e-reader devices. The potential for differentiating instruction is facilitated with the use of the e-reader and purposeful planning.

References

Larson, L.C. (2010). Digital readers: The next chapter in e-book reading and response. The Reading Teacher, 64(1),15-22.

Tomlinson, C. A. & Allan, S. D. (2000). Leadership for differentiating schools and classrooms. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Denise Stuart is from The University of Akron, Ohio.

This article is part of a series from the Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).

by Terrell A. Young and Nancy L. Hadaway

Below is a list of books that educators can use to introduce poetry lessons into their classrooms.

Barton, B., & Booth, D. (2004). Poetry goes to school: From Mother Goose to Shel Silverstein. Markham, ON: Pembroke Publishers.

Booth, D., & Moore, B. 2003. Poems please! Sharing poetry with Children. (2nd edition). Markham, Ontario, CA: Pembroke Publishers.

Burkhardt, R. M. (2006). Using poetry in the classroom: Engaging students in learning. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Education.

Chatton, B. (2010). Using poetry across the curriculum: Learning to love language. (2nd edition). Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.

Collom, J., & Noethe, S. (2005). Poetry everywhere: Teaching poetry writing in school and in the community. New York: Teachers & Writers Collaborative.

Corbett, P. (2008). Jumpstart! Poetry. New York: Routledge.

Fitch, S., & Swartz, L. (2008). The Poetry experience: Choosing and using poetry in the classroom. Markham, ON: Pembroke.

Franco, Betsy. (2005). Conversations with a poet: Inviting poetry into k-12 classrooms. Richard C. Owens.

Heard, G., & Laminack, L.L. (2008). Reading and writing poetry across the year. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. 

Holbrook, S. (2005). Practical poetry: A nonstandard approach to meeting content area standards. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Janeczko, P. B. 2011. Reading poetry in the middle grades: 20 poems and activities that meet the Common Core Standards and cultivate a passion for poetry. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Vardell, S. M. (2007). Poetry people: A practical guide to children’s poets. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.

Vardell, S. M. (2012). The poetry teacher’s book of lists. Seattle, WA: CreateSpace.

Vardell, S. M. (2012). Poetry aloud here 2: Sharing poetry with children. Chicago: American Library Association.

This article is an addendum to an article on page 30 of the October/November 2012 issue of Reading Today. IRA members can read the interactive digital version of the magazine here. Nonmembers: join today!