The Evolving Age for Literacy Skills Development

The combination of modern technology and effective reading instruction produces very meaningful results. Educators from all over the world have been making use of high-tech gadgets and lightning fast internet speeds to aid them in teaching kids the wonders of reading. Literacy instruction, among many other areas of teaching, evolved as society gets ‘plugged in’ and ‘wired’. The traditional classroom is no longer bound by four walls; learning can be done outside the confines of the school.

For reading teachers, one of the challenges remains creating engagement and interest within the students. Fortunately, technology brought about tools that can be easily incorporated in the traditional learning setup. The internet provides a wide array of resources – written, spoken, or visual. Below are some of the most exciting and effective tools to help teach reading.

Fundamental Skills-Honing Apps and Software

There are many apps and free downloadable software that reinforce the fundamental English and reading skills of students. These games include mechanics that hone:

• Sentence mastery
• Word construction
• Sequencing
• Spelling
• Vocabulary

More importantly, these apps are designed with audio that helps in remembering the correct pronunciation of words; association between words, images, and sound is an all too important skill which should be emphasized by teachers of young kids.

Verizon includes two apps on its best educational app list which are great tools for teaching reading.

• Brain Pop is an animated and cartoon-style app which provides tons of educational resources in reading comprehension (and other subjects) both for students and teachers.

• Copia is a social networking app with emphasis on giving e-reading materials for learners of any age.

Other noteworthy reading games are the following:

Gary’s Place tells the story of a delightful gopher and his adventures. This charming little storybook app helps young kids practice reading through a simple yet engaging story.

iSort Words helps out with homonyms and word families. Children will develop faster word recognition while having fun with this reading and spelling app.

Digital Thesauri, Dictionaries, and Atlases

The Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) model enables a more dynamic and interactive learning experience, especially with tools such as tablets containing digital versions of dictionaries, thesauri and atlases. What’s great about these modern reincarnations of our traditional books is the visual and interactive aspect of it. For example, a single word entry’s proper pronunciation may be easily learnt just with a single tap on the screen. Similarly, there is no need to scour the thousands of pages of a dictionary to look for the meanings of synonyms. There are free online dictionaries and thesauri which can be accessed on WiFi enabled classrooms.

Examples of reliable apps in this category.

Each can be previously installed on the students’ devices.

Merriam-Webster

Oxford Dictionary

FreeSaurus

National Geographic World Atlas

Barefoot World Atlas

Audio Books and Publications

Recorded books or audio books can provide an alternative way for students to appreciate literature. The teacher should be proactive and make steps to ensure students receive the best reading (or in this case ‘hearing’) materials. Collate audio files and visual materials into a single dashboard or hub for the class. Pinterest, a social networking site, provides a great platform for online meetings for classes to share and interact.

More than just the obvious complementary relationship between technology and education, there are more benefits that result from this combination. Learning disabilities such as dyslexia can be accommodated by technological tools and practices.

The National Assessment of Educational Press conducted a study concluding that reading for entertainment actually boosts academic performance. For dyslexics who have a hard time reading traditional books, alternative methods should keep them up to par with their peers in terms of academics.

Possible resources of digital resources for dyslexics include:

Project Gutenberg, a collection of classic reads such as Charles Dickens and Aesop

Books Should Be Free, bestselling books that are in the public domain. This cornucopia of literary goodness has materials for young ones, teens, and adults.

StoryNory is the best place to download spoken fantasy literature. Teachers of dyslexic students might want to check out this wide collection of read fairytales, myths, and fables.

Web-based learning opens more doors for genuine interest in the many subjects in school, reading being one of them.

Question: I would love to know, how you using technology to teach and aid students’ reading abilities? Share with us your thoughts on the comments section.

Reese Jones is very passionate when it comes to Ed-tech. She has been participating in various events related to the spreading of technology education in her area. A freelance writer and self-confessed geek, Reese is soon to acquire her degree in education in the soonest future. Talk to her on Twitter and Google+.

Startup weekend EDU helps you to kick start your education startup ideas. Over the weekend you form teams with the attendees and get advice and support from valuable mentors who are industry professionals.

My Story

The idea for TinkerED came from my real life experience when I moved to San Francisco from Ireland. I set up a meet up group to make new friends and meet other teachers. My meet up group attracted the attention of Educational Technology companies who wanted to share their ideas with a teacher and get feedback. I noticed a gap in the market for these connections to occur and wanted to solve it.

I pitched my idea on Friday night alongside 54 other great attendees, only 15 of these ideas made it to the second round. Despite my initial pitch just missing out on gaining a top spot, I decided to continue my mission and set out determined to find my team. One by one it grew six persons strong and TinkerED was created. With the help of my wonderful team and fantastic mentors  we won 1st place. It was an amazing experience that I want to share.

What does TinkerED do?

• TinkerED connects education technology companies with expert teachers who want to help build the best educational tools of the future.

• Sign up needs for education technology companies so far include: user testing, user feedback,  content writing and more.

• Teachers have signed up as they want to get involved in creating the educational tools they will be using and also want to earn some extra cash.

• Teachers and EdTech companies can sign up here.

What I learned from Startup Weekend

• If you have an idea that you feel passionate about, go after it and find the evidence and support to prove its value by talking to people.

• Take every opportunity to share your ideas. Getting up to pitch is very nerve wracking, but if you don’t take the opportunity, no-one will hear your voice. Plus everyone is really supportive towards each other.

• Sharing your ideas with others helps your idea to grow.

• Listen to feedback from expert mentors and attendees and learn from their experiences.

• Make lasting connections with interesting people.

What’s next for TinkerED?

• We want to continue to build our community of expert teachers and education technology companies and get them connected. EdTech companies and teachers can sign up here.

• TinkerED’s win earned us the opportunity to apply for the Global Startup Battle and we need your votes to get us there.

• To see TinkerED’s video entry and vote for us click here.

• To contact the team or to find out more information, you can visit TinkerED or email me, suzy@teachersuzy.com

We would love to hear your thoughts on our mission,

‘Connecting education technology companies with expert teachers to shape the future of learning tools.’

To find out more about Startup Weekend and find events near you, visit the Startup weekend home page.

This is a great website where you can:

• Find reviews of educational tools such as Apps and websites.

• Search for the most popular tools used by the Edshelf community.

• Create your own collections of educational tools that you use.

• View favorite collections made by others.

• Write reviews on products.

• Create a free account today on Edshelf.

EdShelf Blog

I am excited to say I have recently written some guest blog posts for the site. Keep up to date on the latest additions to Edshelf, and all things educational and tech.

Check out the Edshelf blog here. There are post from, Mike Lee (co-founder of Edshelf) Laura Heintz (educator) and myself.

I have had such fun reading emails from all the wonderful people who downloaded Fun Phonics for your Little Genius and answering their enquiries. The response was awesome and made me very happy that my book was so well received, so thank you to all of you kind folks who downloaded it. YOU inspired me to write a weekly newsletter, Phonics List.

• My first newsletter went live on October 30th 2013.

What will the newsletter contain?

• You will receive my newsletter once a week.
• You will find fun links to Phonics activities, Apps, websites, interesting education articles and any fun Phonics stuff I find.

If you have not already signed up you can do it here Phonics List.

What will you get for signing up?

• As a thank you, you will receive a copy of my book.
• If you share you will also receive a free gift. A fun Phonics activity, hand created by me, just for you.

If you would like to be featured in Phonics List, or share something, please send me a link to your awesome ideas

I like to think of Prezi as a big picture of ideas. It is like an interactive poster which you can dive into deeper. Your audience sees the entire idea as one big picture to start, which is then broken into the important parts that make up that big picture.

This is a simple Prezi put together to show an example of how kids could use it to make simple and fun presentations. The topic the children are learning is ‘Christmas Around the World.’ This is an example project of ‘Christmas in Ireland.’

Sign up  is free and takes literally 2 minutes, Sign up here

Getting started

Use the video tutorials to help

• Video tutorials are fantastic and get you going in 5 minutes.

• Share the videos with your class.

• Before watching the videos, play around with Prezi and the tools.

First step to making your Prezi

• Choose a design for your Prezi.

• Designs are readily available with lots to choose from.

• This makes the design part simple. You choose a layout and then fill in your information where you want it.

• You can add extra text / image boxes to each section.

What next?

• At the beginning, your Prezi will look like one slide.  Like a single slide in a powerpoint presentation. This is your big picture.

• To the left you will see a continuous roll of what resemble slides, like in powerpoint.

• In this example, each of the slides to the left, represent each of the circles you see on the big picture.

• These slides to the left also represent the order your show will follow. As you play the show, each of these areas in your big picture will be zoomed in on.

Adding Images to your Prezi

• Choose which area (in this case which circle) you want your image to be in.

• Once you have chosen the area, simply click the icon at the top of the page that says ‘insert’.

• You can insert personal photos or I love that google images are pulled up on the right of the screen. You can search on the same page.

• Simply choose, then drag and drop images and resize by selecting the image.

• Images are easily rotated by grabbing the bottom right corner.

Adding Youtube Videos

• By clicking the same insert button, you can also choose to insert a Youtube video.

• Simply copy and paste in your Youtube link.

Presentation

• Final steps are just playing around with your Prezi, adding color, changing sizes, font sizes etc.

• Click on the ‘present’ at the top to see your Prezi in action.

• Screen one will be the big picture.

• Then it will take your audience through each of the areas in your poster.

Next lesson is a website where you can share and purchase topic based learning projects which are expertly created. Next Lesson aims to answer the driving question: How can we prepare children for the real world?  Their solution is through the topic based approach to learning. Each project also aligns directly with the new Common Core State Standards, CCSS.

Project plans include:

• Step by step lesson guides for teachers.
• All resources needed.
• Often includes homework packs and grading rubrics.

How to use the lessons

• The projects can be taught interactively directly from the website with student access and notes for students included in the project.
• The project can be printed and taught from the printed version.
• Teachers can also edit the projects to tailor them to their class before printing or using interactively.

Next Lessons methods and research

• They support the understanding that project based learning leaves a bigger neurological footprint in the brain so this type of learning cements knowledge in children’s heads.
• Topic based learning better engages students in a topic.
• They promise to use  a strict vetting process, where only trusted authors known to the website and experienced in project based learning can publish
• Publishers use certain guidelines and have been through a review processes.
• They strive for an education that is richly child driven where children learn through well structured and interactive projects.

Example Projects

The website contains well over 100 projects to download.  These 2 example projects demonstrate the goal of Next Lesson. They each link to real world skills of collaboration, team work and problem solving.

• Ghoulish Ghosts- Writing a ghost story for halloween – takes children through a collaborative process of reading with children, writing a class ghost story and then writing their own.

•  Adaptasaurus - children learn about adaptation of species before collaboratively designing their own creatures adapted to their made up habitat.

Bonus: New members get a $2 credit.  Most projects are between $3-$5.

Try it out, Next Lesson

Children need opportunities to develop their critical thinking skills, personal capabilities and problem solving skills. This App, Sorting Machine  is a great place to start getting your child started. The App focuses on:

Sequencing

• Children are presented with opportunities to order things such as letters alphabetically, numbers in numerical order and sizes, e.g: tallest to shortest and vice versa, biggest to smallest and vice versa.

Ordering

• Children have to order amounts such as more  to less, or  items from lowest to highest.

Following directions

• Children practice the important art of following instructions. Younger children benefit from the picture representations at the top to help understand the instructions.

 Critical Thinking Skills / Problem solving

• Children need to use their problem solving skills to figure out how to re-arrange the objects. They need to make logical moves as only one item can be moved at a time.

Visual discrimination

• Children practice an important skill of studying a set of objects and deciding which is tallest / shortest biggest / smallest etc.

Language Development

• Children are introduced to comparative language (comparing 2 or more objects in relation to size for example) and superlative language  (a description of something to the highest degree eg: tallest being the most tall) adjectives.

This App is free to download and is very much worth it, Sorting Machine

When children enjoy what they are doing, they will learn best and want to keep at the activity.

What the children will learn

Children will have fun building words.

They will practice choosing and hearing and medial vowel sounds.

Practice hearing and finding the beginning and end sounds in a word.

What you Need

A range of CVC word pictures (CVC word means a word that has a consonant, then a vowel, then a consonant eg: cat, map etc). Draw 3 blank boxes under each. These can be laminated or placed inside a clear cover. This way children can write their answers on top with dry wipe markers and they can be re-used.

Sound squares for each of the letters / sounds they need to make each word. Write letters on paper and cut out into squares. (To EXTEND and further challenge,  add extra letters the children will not need.)

Example Game

There is some set up required to sort letters. But once this is done you can keep all the letters and pictures together in one box to re-use.

To begin, choose 4 words with the same middle sound.

Vowels are the most tricky sounds for children to hear inside words. This activity provides plenty of repetition, this greatly benefits the learning process. When children develop more confidence, you can introduce a range of vowels.

Vowel ‘a’ example word list

sad

tap

hat

bat

Have pictures for each, with 3 blank squares under each. The game can be played by 1-4 players.

Have a range of sound squares that the children will need to make the words. For this game they will need (s, d , h , b, a, t, p).

Place the sounds face down.

Each child takes one or 2 picture cards, depending on how many are playing. If playing alone, that child can practice making all the words.

Children take it in turns to over turn over a sound square.

If the child turns over a square they need. They write the sound they need under their picture and replace the sound square incase someone else may need it.

If they turn over a sound they do not need, they put it back and play proceeds to the next person.

The object of the game is to make your word first.

Encourage children to practice saying the sounds as they turn them over.

Set up hints

You may have lots of these games in one classroom or home. To save pieces getting mixed up between games, place a colour dot on the back of each sounds square and keep in a box / bag together with the pictures. That way pieces that end up on the floor can be safely returned to their correct game area.

Word list options

These word lists have been made as I think the pictures are easy to either draw, or can be found easily on the internet.

Vowel ‘e’

red  wet  hen  pen  ten  vet  pet

Vowel ‘i’

sit  big  dig  fin  six  pin  lid

Vowel ‘o’

pot  top  mop  pop  hop  dog  box  fox

Adapt the game for younger / older levels

This game can be adopted for children of all levels.

To address the needs of beginners, you could have the children match the sounds in words.

Have your pictures with the word already underneath. Children have fun matching the sounds by turning them over in the game.

Older children love playing this game to make, longer and more complicated words.

Older children could also create the game themselves to practice their spellings

Let us know if you try it out

This is a great tool for teachers to use for a quick check on students knowledge.

How to use it

Sign up is quick and easy from  http://www.socrative.com/

Follow simple directions to set up quizzes and get a room number.

Children go straight to the website on their device and can join your room via your number.

Children answer the quiz questions.

Why I like it.

There is no messy sign up for children. No need for them to remember passwords and usernames. All they need is your room number which you can provide.

It’s a fun way to ‘test’ the kiddos that is stress free and fun.

It provides live feedback as the children choose their answers.

You can request feedback in the form of an email if you wish. This cuts out the teachers job of having to make a record.

My students were able to find and complete the tests with ease.

It is quick to respond and sign in.

There are multiple functions to try and play with, such as completing quizzes as part of a team.

You can share quizzes with other teachers too.

I can quickly assess where individual children need help.

Try it out http://www.socrative.com