Thursday, April 21, 2011
Questions to be Researched:
How might technology motivate and engage reluctant readers? How could technology be used to enhance reading instruction in fifth grade?
My Process
For this project I worked with a group of three boys, once a week for three weeks. Once a week I would work with the boys for about 45 minutes. We always began by reading a picture book, and we would end by incorporating some sort of technology. The students would then print out their final products. The following three posts discuss in detail what we did on each of the three days.
Day 1:
Technology Used: toondoo.com
Assignment: After reading the book, the students were to identify three of the main events. After these were chosen, they were told to go to toondo.com and represent these three main events in a comic strip.
NCSCOS Objectives:
-2.02 Interact with the text before, during, and after reading, listening, and viewing by:
making predictions.
- 2.03 Read a variety of texts, such as:
fiction (tall tales, myths).
-2.09 Listen actively and critically by:
asking questions.
-4.10 Use technology as a tool to enhance and/or publish a product.
My Observations:
On the day that I began my project, I told my SBTE that I wanted to work with three reluctant readers in her classroom. She immediately suggested three boys for me to work with. Initially, I began with telling them that I was going to be pulling them out once a week for reading instruction. All three of them instantly groaned as if the thought of reading was the most awful thing in the world. Once I told them that we would be working on the computers though, they became a little bit more interested.
To start out, we took a look at the cover of the book, and I asked the boys to make some predictions for what might happen in this story. (At this point only one of the boys was willing to say anything. The other two still seemed disinterested.) Once we had discussed his predictions, we moved on to talk about how we know what the main events of the story are. As we talked more about this, all three of the students began to slowly join in as well. I told them that while I was reading the story aloud to them, they should be thinking about what they thought the three most important events were. As I read, one of the students became extremely engaged. He asked a question on nearly every page, and they usually took the form of "I wonder if....." After I had finished reading the book, we discussed it for a few minutes and then I asked for someone to tell me what they thought the three main events were. After we agreed on these events as a group, I discussed the assignment with the students. I told them that they were to get on the computers and go to toondoo.com where they would create a comic strip displaying the three main events from the story. At the mention of creating a comic, all three of the boys suddenly got really excited. They all quickly logged on to this website and got started. From the minute that they started working on this project to the time that they finished, their motivation remained extremely high. All of the boys seemed to really enjoy getting to make their own designs, and they even wanted to print out extra copies to show their teachers. For their first time working with me, I thought that they did a good job. I could tell that their motivation had increased a good deal by the end of lesson, and they even asked when the next time I would work with them would me. I was already seeing improvements.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Day 2:
Technology Used: Online Newspaper Generator
(http://www.fodey.com/generators/newspaper/snippet.asp)
Assignment: After reading the book, the students were given the following assigment:
-Imagine you are a newspaper reporter on the day that Roberto Clemente died. Write a news article on his death, listing some of his greatest accomplishments.
NCSCOS Objectives:
-2.01 Use metacognitive strategies independently and flexibly to monitor comprehension and extend vocabulary (e.g., skim, scan, reread the text, consult other sources, ask for help, summarize, paraphrase, question).
-2.02 Interact with the text before, during, and after reading, listening, and viewing by:
making predictions.
formulating questions.
-4.01 Read aloud grade-appropriate text with fluency, comprehension, expression, and personal style demonstrating an awareness of volume, pace, audience, and purpose.
-4.09 Produce work that follows the conventions of particular genres (e.g., essay, feature story, business letter).
-4.10 Use technology as a tool to enhance and/or publish a product.
My Observations:
On my second day of working with these students, I could tell that they were excited before we even began. The first question that they asked me was "Are we going to work on the computers again?" They practically cheered when I told them that yes, we would be using technology again.
I began this lesson much like the first one, by asking the students to make predictions about the book and what was going to happen. After listening to their ideas, we started by letting each student alternate with reading aloud one page at a time. During this process, something really exciting happened. Without me getting involved, the students would stop while they were reading to ask questions, talk about what was happening, and summarize what they had just read! I was so proud of them for doing this, especially for doing it without me asking them to. As they were reading I noticed that all three of them stayed engaged throughout the entire book, and they all seemed to enjoy it. This was already dramatically different from the first lesson, where only one of them was engaged throughout. After reading, I told the students that their assignment was to:
Imagine you are a newspaper reporter on the day that Roberto Clemente died. Write a news article on his death, listing some of his greatest accomplishments.
To do this, they logged on to the computers and went to an online newspaper generator. Here they typed in their stories and it automatically put them into a newspaper format. I was extremely surprised at how hard these boys worked on this assignment, especially since none of them like writing or reading all that much. The students worked for a solid 30 minutes, and even then I had to stop them from writing more. I also really loved that I saw them going back into the text to get some of the main details. When they were finished, they thought that their newspapers were just the coolest things in the world. Again, they asked for their own copies to show their classmates. I was extremely pleased with their performances during this lesson, and I could see that the technology was definitely making a difference for them.
Day 3:
Technology Used: wordle.net
Assignment: Prior to reading the book, students were given the following instructions:
As we go through the book, write down examples of personification. Also, think about what the author's purpose might have been in writing this book.
After reading, the students were to type their personification examples into wordle.net to make a collage.
NCSCOS Objectives:
-2.03 Read a variety of texts, such as:
fiction (tall tales, myths).
-2.04 Identify elements of fiction and nonfiction and support by referencing the text to determine the:
effectiveness of figurative language (e.g., personification, flashback).
-2.10 Identify strategies used by a speaker or writer to inform, entertain, or influence an audience.
-4.10 Use technology as a tool to enhance and/or publish a product.
My Observations:
On this final day of working with the boys, they could hardly wait to get started! Instead of asking if we were going to use technology, the first thing that they asked me was what book we were going to read. This question made me so happy because it showed me that the students did care about the reading and not just the technology. Before we got started reading, I asked the students if they knew what personification was, and they did, so they gave me some examples. After talking about this for a bit, I gave them the following instructions:
As we go through the book, write down examples of personification. Also, think about what the author's purpose might have been in writing this book.
As I began reading, I noticed that all of the boys seemed extremely engaged and they automatically began writing down personification examples from the book. Every time I read a sentence with the personification, they got really excited and said "There's another one!" After reading, we had a really good conversation about what the author's purpose might have been, and about the examples that they had written down. It was clear to me that the boys were so much more excited and engaged about the books than they were to begin with.
I then gave them their technology task of typing their personification examples into wordle.net to make a collage. All three of them went to work immediately and didn't look up from the computer until their work was complete. In just three short weeks of working with the students, I could tell that their motivation for reading had increased so much, and it was all done by letting them use technology.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
My Reflection Answering These Questions:
While working on this project with my 5th grade boys, I decided to check out a few websites to see what others have found on this same topic. The main question that I wanted to answer was “Can technology motivate reluctant readers, and how?” After going over my work, and that of 4th grade teacher Jacquie Fitch, I believe that technology can indeed motivate reluctant readers. On the first day that I had the opportunity to work with these three boys, I could already tell that they DID NOT like reading at all, and groaned at the mention of working with books. As I read on that day, only one of the students became even moderately engaged. The other two were gazing off at other students and staring up at the ceiling. But after letting them work with the technology during the lesson, the boys instantly became more motivated. Having worked with them only three times, I could already see huge improvements. On the last day all three of them were extremely engaged with the text, asking questions, making predictions, and getting excited about what we were reading. I know that this dramatic increase in motivation and attention was due to the incorporation of the technology, which all of these students loved and were always really excited about. Fourth grade teacher Jacquie Fitch saw similar results when she began incorporating IPods into her literacy instruction. She took a group of her reluctant readers and let them listen to their books being read on IPods, instead of having them read independently to themselves. What she found from this was that she had no students showing off task behaviors when using the IPods, instead they were all extremely engaged. She also notes “I also observed an increase in student motivation to read chapter books when they knew the iPods would be used. It was exciting to see students who had previously struggled with reading on their own performing well with iPods in class” (Fitch, 2010). So based on my research and that of Jacquie Fitch, I believe that technology does encourage reluctant readers by keeping them on task and giving them more motivation to read books.
My second question that I wanted to answer out of this was “How might technology be used to enhance reading instruction?” In my lessons, I used the technology as a fun way to reinforce what we had been discussing in the lesson. We would read the books and then talk about some literacy concept, followed by a brief session working with some technology. Just the promise of getting to work with this technology at the end of every lesson was enough for the students to stay motivated and engaged throughout the reading. Authors Ann Holum, Ph.D., and Jan Gahala, M.A. also agree that technology can be used to help readers. They say that “Technology is most effective when it is used as an adjunct to traditional reading instruction. "A consistent finding from investigations of reading curricula is that brief, but regular, computer-based reading lessons can enhance reading achievement” (Holum, & Gahala, 2001).They recommend technology that supports the student’s reading development such as audio books, electronic talking books, and programmed reading instruction. Their approach is geared more towards using the technology for the actual reading, which I think is a great idea. One website that I found particularly helpful during my research has been http://webtools4u2use.wikispaces.com. Originally created for school media specialists, this has been a great resource for me in looking for ideas of things to do in the classroom. I, for example got my idea of the newspaper generator as well as toondoo.com from this website. Both of these were great ideas that the students really enjoyed working with. At this site there are just lists upon lists of links that take you directly to each site. I know that this is a resource that I will definitely be using more in the future.
In summary, from working with my students and by looking at these three resources, I have found that technology definitely does encourage reluctant readers and that it is best used as a supplement to regular reading instruction. I’m so glad to have chosen this topic for my project, and I know that this is information that will be very useful in my future classroom.
References:
Fitch, Jacquie. (2010, April 08). Innovation grant: jacquie fitch. Retrieved from http://wiki.canby.k12.or.us/groups/ipodusergroup/weblog/d9af6/
Holum, Ann, & Gahala, Jan. (2001, October). Critical issue: using technology to enhance literacy instruction. Retrieved from http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/content/cntareas/reading/li300.htm
Webtools4u2use. (2011). Retrieved from http://webtools4u2use.wikispaces.com/
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