Every year, the International Reading Association names one grand-prize winner, seven U.S. regional winners, one Canadian winner, and one international winner of The Presidential Award for Reading and Technology. The award honors educators in kindergarten through 12th grade who are making an outstanding and innovative contribution to the use of technology in reading education. All entrants must be educators who work directly with students ages 5-18 for all or part of the working day.
In 2007 the Grand Prize winner was Larry Ferlazzo of Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, California, whose work was featured in the August/September issue of Reading Today. Other regional winners besides those featured on these pages include Rachael Ogbin of Governor Charles C. Stratton Elementary School in Woolwich Township, New Jersey; Sara R. Van Abel of Negaunee High School in Negaunee, Michigan; Eric Langhorst of South Valley Junior High in Liberty, Missouri; and Helena Marie Stevens of Ricardo Richards Elementary School in Kingshill, Virgin Islands. Jo Ann Merritt of Downtown Elementary in Bakersfield, California, was featured in the December/January issue.
For more information about the award and how to apply, visit IRA’s website and click on “Awards and Grants.”
First graders in Westmount Elementary School in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, can see from their prairie town on the plains of Saskatchewan to the seashores of New Zealand, all the while sharpening their technology skills and sharing their work with friends and family.
Their improved vision is a direct result of Kathy Cassidy’s innovative incorporation of high-tech wizardry into the primary reading program at the working-class school, where “blogging, podcasts, and wikis are all part of a regular day in the classroom for my students,” she said.
One of her charges was viewing the blog of a 6-year-old boy in another province when he noticed the boy hadn’t posted anything since December. “Christmas has passed. Write something new,” her student responded to the blogger. Her students do post regularly; hence the title “Write Something New.”
During the past school year, the 37 students in the first grade at Westmount recorded their thoughts on their own personal blogs using free software, Classblogmeister, which also counted the “hits” on their blogs. They could illustrate their writing with Kid Pix. At other times, they added voice by doing a podcast of their work linked to their blog. Podcasts were recorded using Audacity, which is free on the Internet.
As their skills improved, Cassidy introduced students to wikis, online editable documents. They wrote beginnings, middles, and endings to several stories, and the children added to them on their own.
Cassidy said that although she expected her students to blog in class, she was “pleasantly surprised to see that many of them wrote articles from home as well. I would frequently come to school in the morning and open my e-mail to find that one or several children had written something from home.” She required that all postings go through her for approval.
All of these efforts paid off when all her students achieved the goal they had set, a level 10 in reading using PM Benchmarks by Nelson Publishing, Cassidy said.
And “knowing that other people besides the teacher were reading their writing was a great inspiration for the children to always do their best.” These readers included another first-grade class in Canada and, of course, the New Zealanders. Her students “were surprised and curious” to find out about the volcano near their school on the island nation. “They erupted in a multitude of questions when a picture of their friends there showed them holding their noses as they viewed a dead shark-something none of my children had ever seen.”
Cassidy said that because of the success of the program, it will be continued again this year, and once again, her children can “write something new.”
With his innovative use of Palm handheld computers and a digital whiteboard called a Smartboard, Eric Benson of Luray Elementary School in Page County, Virginia, has integrated technology into his third-grade classroom-and boosted his students’ scores on the Virginia Standards of Learning (VASOL) tests. His goal is to have all of his students reading well by the end of the school year, and so far his methods seem to be working. Nine of his students identified in fall 2005 as reading below the third-grade level passed the VASOL in spring 2006, achieving an average score of 573 out of 600, and 80% of his students scored above average on the reading portion of the test.
How does his “Power in Small Hands” program work?
PDAs (personal digital assistants) are relatively inexpensive, Benson said. Therefore, “the goal of one computer for every one of my students is easily realized with these economical handheld devices.” Because nearly 40% of Luray’s students are in the free and reduced lunch program, many can’t afford computers in their homes, he said. Therefore, students share information with each other and their teacher and read eBooks using the little PDAs. They use the address function for vocabulary words and other software to aid in visualization and to track the books they’ve read.
Benson also uses a digital whiteboard as a “hands-on, minds-on technology tool” to enhance reading instruction and engage learners. He said it allows him to “model ways in which readers and writers interact with texts.” The electronic board enables him “to relate with the class, demonstrate effective literacy strategies, and manipulate what is on the board by touch. I am not confined to, or focused on, a computer that separates me from the class.”
His ideas have been so successful that he has been conducting staff development training over the past two years with his peers locally and in other parts of the state-proof that professional development can be timely, technological, and terrific fun.
So, what’s cookin’?
Saunter into Amy Cantrell’s first-grade class and you’ll find food for thought as well as food to eat. She has combined both in “Books and Cooks,” her reading program designed “to increase interest, vocabulary, technology use, and cooking experiences among students.” It’s a smorgasbord that seems to work.
During the first month of the program at Ellington Elementary in Wagoner, Oklahoma, Cantrell’s class read How to Make Apple Pie and See the World by Marjorie Priceman (Dragonfly, 1994), a story about making an apple pie after a global hunt to find the ingredients.
Not only did students learn something about apple pies, they learned how to use the Internet to locate the countries, and the Smartboard to record their progress. They used PowerPoint to show their work and invited other classes to share their findings and what they cooked, prepared with the help of volunteers from the community, a rural one about 45 miles east of Tulsa. About 75% of the children in nine first-grade classes at Ellington qualify for free or reduced lunch under federal guidelines, and nearly half the students are Native American. The community and parents were able to follow the children’s work via webpages the students built.
Students learned to use digital cameras, scanners, microphones, the Smartboard, personal computers, and the Internet. Cantrell said they also became knowledgeable in downloading, scanning, adding text, and creating PowerPoint slides-with the goal of becoming better writers. At the conclusion of each “Books and Cooks” project, students were encouraged to reflect in writing on their experiences-and eat pretzels, bread, or whatever else they happened to be whipping up for that particular project.
Cantrell said her students benefited greatly from the culinary reading program. Now, they are excited to start new “Books and Cooks” projects, they are retaining what they learned, and they have pride in ownership of their work. She said because they have authentic reasons to read and write, they are rapidly increasing their reading, writing, and oral language vocabulary. And their parents can see the progress and share in the process, too.
When community volunteers were asked to complete a short survey to rate student learning, participation, and value of time, all surveys completed were “very positive,” Cantrell said. “They are amazed at what the children are able to do. This project has been innovative, fun, and a real learning experience for all who are involved.”
Though many media pundits are bemoaning declining newspaper circulation, it’s not fazing students at Fiddlers Canyon Elementary School in Cedar City, Utah, a small town in southwestern Utah. Janette C. Stubbs’s class of fifth graders produces The Fiddlers Gazette, widely read by students at the school of about 550.
Stubbs said the newspaper program was developed last year in response to a need to increase motivation and engagement in reading and writing. Even though most of her students seemed to enjoy writing workshop time, she said, “I have felt that if students had a real-life purpose for writing, and knew that their writings would be read and published, that their effort and motivation...would increase. A newspaper managed and produced by my class seemed to be the answer for me and for the school as well.”
Her students studied and analyzed both print newspapers and Web-based newspapers, focusing on how to write and edit a succinct article. Students embarked on a journalistic quest for news, then wrote and peer-edited the articles.
For the first edition of the quarterly publication, 500 papers were printed and sold for one Mustang dollar. That first edition was a success, Stubbs said. “Students were seen around the hallways reading their copies of the newspaper until the bell rang that morning. Articles then came flooding in from around the school.”
Students honed their skills using computers, word processing, and e-mail programs; digital cameras; and TVs or projectors so all students could help in the editing process. They also practiced skills in organizing workflow and production, decision-making, creating, formatting, printing, advertising, and selling their product.
Stubbs said she’s noticed how excited students are about each new edition and that there has been a significant drop in the number of errors in the copy turned in by the “reporters.” Behavior problems during writing time also have declined, and all students in the class have submitted an article and continue to write.
The newspaper is a fitting complement to “Fiddlersburg”-the learning community of Fiddlers Canyon Elementary that is complete with a token economy in which the Mustang dollar equals one U.S. dollar.
Students earn Mustangs for having no missing assignments, good behavior, and exemplary citizenship or work, for instance. Stubbs said students may also have to pay money for infractions such as forgetting an assignment or bad behavior.
The Gazette is proving to be a valuable tool that reinforces the school motto: “We are here to learn. We will do our best, care for others, and be good citizens in our learning community.”
Presidential awards for reading and technology. (February 2008). Reading Today, 25(4), 44, 45.
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