Hillary Learns to Teach: How can I use technology to inspire and encourage middle school students to read?

In trying to answer my trigger question about how to encourage middle schoolers to read, I found that letting students use ereaders to read their books. According to the SAMR model that I learned about in this week’s lecture, utilizing ereaders augments, or “substitutes with functional improvements”, the reading experience (Wicks, 2017). Ereaders make it possible for students to quickly look up words in the dictionary, make notes in the text, privately read books that they might otherwise be embarrassed of reading in front of their peers, and use the voice-to-text feature, which can be especially helpful for ELL students (Miranda, 2012). These ereader features can make reading an easier task for struggling readers. Several of peers also pointed out that textbooks frequently have even more online resources for students that can help them engage with the text, and that students can also have the choice to read books on their smartphones.

However, after finding the ereader option I am not fully satisfied that it answers my question. In other courses I have learned that students are frequently motivated by personal choice, social interaction, and competition—along with utilizing ereaders, I need another option that can employ these elements. I want a program where students can search for and save books they might like, recommend books to one another, review books, and track their reading. I found two options for this: Goodreads and Biblionasium, which is similar to Goodreads but is designed specifically for children. I have used Goodreads myself and I like the idea of giving students a tool that adult readers use, but I need to explore the options further in order to pick the resources that fulfill my needs and are still appropriate for students.

References:

Biblionasium. Retrieved from www.biblionasium.com

Goodreads. Retrieved from www.goodreads.com

Miranda, T, Johnson, K. A., & Rossi-Williams, D. (2012). E-Readers: Powering Up for Engagement. Educational Leadership, vol. 69. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/jun12/vol69/num09/E-Readers@_Powering_Up_for_Engagement.aspx

Wicks, D. Module 1 Hangout Recording (screencast). (2017). Retrieved from https://vialogues.com/vialogues/play/40646

4 comments:

UnknownOctober 8, 2017 at 5:40 PM
Hillary -
What a lovely post. Your insight about the need for privacy so that students can read a book that they might otherwise feel pressured to skip over is particularly meaningful. I agree that students may be more motivated by a reading tool used by adults, so in that regard Goodreads and Biblionasium seem like great resources. I'm not familiar with Biblionasium and am excited to check it out for my children!
stillmakerOctober 10, 2017 at 4:32 PM
I agree that students like choice. I also like that ereaders provide an opportunity for students to look up words and make notes. It makes me think about using them to teach annotating skills electronically. Thanks for the idea.
AndrewOctober 14, 2017 at 2:46 PM
Hillary,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on eReaders. I've had issues allowing students to use eReaders in the past as they've used them for non-academic reasons (i.e. games). It definitely does hit the first wave of the SAMR model. I love your idea of finding a way for kids to recommend books for one another. I've tried low-tech routes (things like a sticky-note wall or recommendations for the in-class library) but never seem to be able to motivate all the kids. My biggest issue here seems to be finding books that will help the less-motivated be motivated (those kids that don't read outside of class). Any recommendations for engaging these kids?

Sunday, October 8, 2017

How can I use technology to inspire and encourage middle school students to read?

4 comments: