I had assigned Chapter One “The Boy Who Lived.” As I walked around monitoring, I saw Jenna, her head bent in concentration over her Kindle, press the word “glumly.” As the definition appeared I knew it would be automatically added to both her personal word list and to the collective class vocabulary list. Jason, wearing bright blue headphones slouched in his chair but his eyes were riveted to his Kindle. He had struggled with reading in the past, but was quickly gaining ground. I watched as he pressed pause and then went back to the word “spectacles” and pressed it. Satisfied with the definition, he pressed his device again to continue reading. The line was automatically highlighted which helped with tracking as he read the words silently in his head as he heard them being read aloud through his headphones. Glancing at my computer I could see that Jaden, Chris, Maddi and Olivia had nearly finished the chapter. Soon they would be meeting in a corner of the room to discuss the chapter using the enrichment questions I had provided while the rest of the students continued reading. The next four who finished would do likewise and so on until every student had finished reading the chapter at his or her own pace. In the meantime I looked over the list of vocabulary words that had been populated: getups, passersby, stern, peered, exasperated, glumly, spectacles, grudgingly. I highlighted the sentences that contained these words and send them directly to my smartboard. When each student had finished reading we discussed the meanings of the words as well as Potter specific words that they used context clues to figure out. “It said, ‘turn any boy’s head’ what does that mean?” Julio asked, launching us into discussion about idioms. He had highlighted that phrase on his Kindle so that he could ask about it in discussion. Wrapping up our class vocab discussion, I gave the students the comprehension and analysis questions and instructed them to work with a partner to begin to re-read the chapter and answer the questions. Next I printed off each student’s personal word list for homework extension activities. I would use these words in vocabulary games and each student would use his or her own.
This is a great app for vocabulary and comprehension development as well as differentiation. Students can use the dictionary function on their Kindles to immediately get the definition of a word, and I get a list of these unfamiliar words. I can monitor students reading speed and provide enrichment activities for students who finish reading before others. I can provide supports for challenged readers including tracking assistance and headphones to hear it read aloud.
Unfortunately, to my knowledge this app doesn’t yet exist. The anecdote I gave is as fictional as the Harry Potter series itself. But, if it did exist, wouldn’t it be a magical tool for teaching reading? It seems like it would be simple enough to create. So, for my very first blog, I’m risking any chance I would have to copyright this idea by sharing it with the world. My hope is that some enterprising programmer / educator will make such an app and young readers everywhere will benefit.
This is a great app for vocabulary and comprehension development as well as differentiation. Students can use the dictionary function on their Kindles to immediately get the definition of a word, and I get a list of these unfamiliar words. I can monitor students reading speed and provide enrichment activities for students who finish reading before others. I can provide supports for challenged readers including tracking assistance and headphones to hear it read aloud.
Unfortunately, to my knowledge this app doesn’t yet exist. The anecdote I gave is as fictional as the Harry Potter series itself. But, if it did exist, wouldn’t it be a magical tool for teaching reading? It seems like it would be simple enough to create. So, for my very first blog, I’m risking any chance I would have to copyright this idea by sharing it with the world. My hope is that some enterprising programmer / educator will make such an app and young readers everywhere will benefit.